


Cannibal Fiction Double Feature

by snap_snap_snap



Category: Hannibal (TV), Rocky Horror Picture Show
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, F/F, First Time, Hannibal Lecter Being an Asshole, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Lesbian Sex, M/M, Minor Character Death, Resurrection, Rocky Horror AU, SEX!, Sassy Will Graham, Supernatural Elements, Wendigo, Zombies, alana and will are bffs, alana is brad, hanni is a pushy asshole but whats new, people gonna die ok, will graham is southern, will is bad at social stuff, will is janet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-06-25 21:22:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15649179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snap_snap_snap/pseuds/snap_snap_snap
Summary: Detective Will Graham and his partner Dr. Alana Bloom take a drive on a dark and stormy night to visit possible stalking victim Dr. Bedelia DuMaurier. Along the way, the pair become lost, and wind up at a strange mansion deep in the woods hosting an odd party with odd people. Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the host of said party, then drags the pair through a night of horror, science fiction, and - of course - cannibalism.Note: You don't have to have watched the movie to read the fic.Hannibal (TV) Rocky Horror AU for ReelHannibal event 2018.





	1. (There's a Light) Over at the Lecter Place

“Bedelia DuMaurier.” Will reads from the file in his hands. “Claims she fears for her life, et cetera.” He pauses. Alana glances over but mostly keeps her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “Why didn’t she come to the police station? Why are we driving to her?” Will looks at the darkening sky with narrowed eyes. The roads are unkept in this area and the drive is gonna get difficult in the rain.

Alana shrugs and follows Will’s eyes. Once glance at her tense posture and he knows she’s regretting her offer to drive. “I don’t know why. I think she must have some pull, higher up in the department. Friend of a captain, something like that.”

Will makes a noncommittal noise. He’s satisfied by the explanation, but not happy about it. “I guess I should be happy to have any assignment at all,” he says. Then he laughs, but it’s a sad, bitter sound that Alana doesn’t like at all.

“What are the rest of the case details?” she asks.

Will notices the obvious subject change but doesn’t comment. Instead, answers, “It’s hardly a case. Rich lady with friends in high places gets a fright, and now we’re driving out there instead of going home on a Friday night.”

“Details, Will.”

He sighs. “She claims someone has been threatening her for some time, but she’s lodged no previous complaints. She’s pretty ambiguous about all of it. Mainly, she just insists that the threat has ‘escalated’ and she’s ‘fearing for her life.’”

“That’s not a phrase to be taken lightly.”

“No, but her statement reads like a Modernist novel. Rich people always overestimate their problems. If they can’t use money to fix it, they’re thrown for a loop.” Alana smiles, but the expression is more relieved than happy; when he makes jokes, she feels like he’s getting better. Or something like that. Even with his empathy, Will’s no mind reader. He sits back and thinks about how he wound up 1,000 miles from home with a therapist for a partner.

 

Will’s always had his empathy: it had helped him make friends as a child, but quickly became a burden that separated him from his peers. He understood everyone too well, and that made other people uncomfortable, so personal relationships were abortive at best. Even worse, it mentally strained Will as he tried to keep everyone else’s personalities separate from his own in his head.  
Police work had been good for him. He could leave the emotional side to his partner and let his analytical mind work through crimes like puzzles. But even that had been ruined by his last case: a serial killer with twisted justifications written on every victim. Will had gotten too close, and he felt his head becoming warped the longer the case went on, associations mixing and distorting. Two weeks later, he switched departments from the New Orleans to Baltimore, but the physical distance had done nothing for his worsening mental health. By the time he finished his first case in Baltimore, he was antisocial (more than usual), shutting down, and ready to snap.

There weren’t any similarities between the new case and the old. None outside of Will’s mind, anyway. Some kid had robbed a liquor store. No one had even been hurt in the robbery. But Will caught the kid on surveillance, and as soon as he saw her in person, he blacked out. When he came back to himself, he had left the kid tied to a chair and was playing cats’ cradle with a lock of her hair, just as the murderer had been doing when Will caught him.

She hadn’t been hurt, thank god, but Will was suspended nevertheless. Then the department was sued. It was a shit storm.

When all the dust settled, he was offered a second chance at being a detective, on the condition that a department-issue psychiatrist would act as his partner and observe him until she cleared him for regular duty.

Dr. Alana Bloom has been observing Detective Will Graham for four months, and Will sees no change on the horizon.

Not that he minds too much; Alana’s the only Northerner who seems to get his humor.

 

“I think we made a wrong turn somewhere.” Alana tries to update the map on her phone, but she’s lost service and nothing comes up. The rain is pouring in sheets and the headlights only reveal dark forest surrounding them.

“Can we turn back, find the fork and try again?” Will asks while trying to decipher an old road map he found in the glove compartment.

“I guess we have no choice.” Alana shifts the car into reverse and lets off the break, but nothing happens. She taps the gas, but the car remains immobile. Alana pushes the pedal until the engine is growling with effort, but the Volvo sedan is stuck. Alana drops her hands from the wheels and groans. “Shit.”

Will looks up from the map. “We’re stuck?” Alana nods solemnly. “Shit. Well, I guess Ms. Moneybags is gonna have to wait,” he says. Before Alana can ask what he’s doing, Will gets out of the car, using the map to shield himself from the rain.

He takes a look at the tire caught in the mud. He pushes some of the muck away to get a good look at the damage, then curses again, shaking mud off his hand as he walks around to Alana’s door.  
“Turn the car off,” he says through the window. “The tire popped on a vine and the rim is totally sunk in the mud. It’s useless.” He watches Alana throw her head against the headrest, then flip up the collar on her coat.

She turns the key and pockets it as she slips out of the car. “I saw a house not too far back. Maybe they a landline so we can call a cab.” She walks off all determined, so Will follows, still shielding himself with the drenched map while Alana uses her coat.

For a while it’s just blind wandering through sticky mud, but soon enough the house comes into view: tall, extravagant, glowing with light, and completely out of place for the area. “Who builds a mansion in the middle of nowhere?” Will asks, shouting to be heard over the rain and thunder.

“People who like privacy?” Alana guesses hopefully.

“Try serial killers and sex freaks,” Will shoots back. “I think we might be better off hiding in the car until morning.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine!” Alana insists. Will is uneasy, but rushes to the door (and the safety of its overhang) and rings the bell.

Alana has caught up by the time the door is opened. The man is dressed in a butler outfit, and while he looks well put-together, the shine of his eyes makes Will nervous. “Uhh, hi,” Will starts, but Alana quickly takes over, to Will’s relief.

“Our car broke down a little up the road. Do you have a phone we could borrow?” she asks with a winning smile.

The butler smiles slowly, which has Will’s skin crawling. “I’m afraid you’ve caught us mid-party. Let me go ask the master.” Then the door shuts in their face.

“I really don’t like this place, Alana.”

“Nor do I, but they’re out best shot. Do you really want to spend the night in the car, wet and cold and muddy?”

“I’d prefer that to being axe murdered,” he huffs, making Alana laugh.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

“I’m the one with firearm training.”

“And I’m the one carrying mace. Now just be polite and I can handle the social stuff, okay?”

The door swings back open, now revealing the butler along with a tall man in a suit so garishly patterned it shouldn’t be attractive, but on him it somehow is. It makes Will’s eyes hurt just to look at it for too long.

“I apologize for the rude behavior of Mason. Please, do come in,” the man says, swinging his arm wide in invitation. He has a small smile on his face, but Will can tell at a glance that he’s mad as a bull at his butler. His tension seems to decrease when he sweeps his eyes over the pair, but Will convinces himself that the guy’s interested in Alana, not him. But really, who sizes up mud-covered strangers from the highway?

Alana takes the invitation without hesitation, and Will gladly follows in her shadow. Will never liked therapists before, but Alana’s easy understanding of his aversion to people had her placed as a golden exception in his mind. If it had been platonically and socially appropriate, he would have kissed her just then.

The man first shakes Alana’s hand, then Will’s. “My name is Dr. Hannibal Lecter. May I inquire as to yours?”

“I’m Dr. Alana Bloom, and this is Detective Will Graham,” she says. “Like we told your butler, our car broke down, and we could really use access to a phone. By any chance, could we use yours?”

Lecter’s body pauses for a split second. He knows he’s the only one who caught it when Alana doesn’t try to high-tail it after he says, “I must apologize. The storm has taken out our phone line. I insist you stay until morning, however, when Mason can come to your car and help get you on your way.” Phone line down, my ass, Will’s mind mutters. Lecter’s smile broadens a millimeter, his eyes distinctly on Will. Will’s skin crawls again.

Will tries to warn Alana by tugging harshly on the side of her coat, but she’s already saying, “Thank you so much! That’s so kind of you. Are you sure it’s not an imposition?”

“Not at all. In fact, I’m hosting a small party at the moment. Why don’t I have Mason show you to your room? Margot will bring a change of clothes and then you can join us.”

While Alana keeps thanking Lecter like he hung the damn moon, Will begins to coil in on himself, tensing as he wishes he could shrink himself down. Time blurs, and then he’s alone in a guest room and he can finally breathe.

He’s practicing a breathing thing Alana taught him when there’s a knock at the door. “Come in,” he says, voice shakier than he’d like.

A tall-ish woman with her hair in a formal bun enters with a suit in-hand. “Dr. Lecter sent this for you,” she says, walking quickly to the bed to lay down the clothing before turning to leave again.

“Wait,” Will blurts, and she does, but she’s tensed. “Uh, I have a question. I don’t know if you can answer it, but, well,” he says lamely. He might as well confirm what he’s empathy’s screaming, even if it promises a long night of unrequited flirting. She turns to face him and he asks, nervous: “Is Dr. Lecter, uh, into…men?”

The woman raises her eyebrows in surprise. “You’re asking if he’s gay?” She visibly relaxes and a small smile grows. “Dr. Lecter cares for…aesthetic, more than gender. He’s not so easily labeled.” He nods as a thank-you. She nods back, and then, blessedly, he’s alone again.

 

Alana collapses onto the bed as soon as the door closes behind her. She didn’t know why Will had gotten so fidgety when they met Dr. Lecter. Yes, the man is clearly eccentric, but Alana hasn’t seen any red flags so far that would excuse Will’s behavior. But Will’s a grown man and can make his own decisions. He’d been that nervous with her when they’d first met, and now he treats her like a sister, so she knows he can warm up to people if he wants to.

Maybe it’d be a good exercise to get him to cope with a room full of strangers?

A soft knock at the door stops her inner monologue. “Come in,” she says, sitting up and smoothing her skirt, grimacing at the drying mud.

“I’ve brought you a change of clothes,” a woman dressed in a housekeeper’s uniform says. “We weren’t sure of your size, but we estimated. Would you like me to stay and help you get ready?”

Alana smiles and brushes her hair behind her ear. “I’d love that, actually,” she says with a flirtatious smile. The maid hardly responds, however, and places the dress on the ottoman by the edge of the bed before disappearing into the ensuite. Alana shrugs and follows her.

“I’m Alana, by the way.” She checks her hair for detritus while the maid wets a washcloth.

“Margot.” She walks up behind Alana and wipes a speck of mud off the back of her neck. Alana unzips her dress and Margot helps her step out of it. “I’ll clean this for you. It will be ready tomorrow morning.” After placing the dress delicately over the side of the bathtub, Margot returns to continue freeing Alana’s skin of mud.

“If you have work you need to do, I can handle this myself,” Alana offers, straightening and bending her arms as Margot dictates. “I promise I’m quite capable,” she adds and is happy to see Margot respond with a small smile.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d rather stay here and put off dealing with my brother,” she says in a conspiratorial tone.

“Oh, the butler?” Margot turns Alana around, her hands soft but calloused on Alana’s hips.

“Yes, Mason.” The statement is followed by a long-suffering sigh. Before she can ask any more questions, Margot walks off, apparently done cleaning Alana off. “Your foundation and eye makeup look fine, but you might want to touch up the edges of your lipstick,” Margot says as she leaves the bathroom. She returns a second later holding the dress.

Alana fixes the edge of her bottom lip with her thumbnail in the mirror, then turns to let Margot redress her. She steps into the dress, holding up her hair as Margot zips her up. She can feel her breath on the back of her neck, so Alana hurries to rearrange her hair as to hide her shiver.

“Is the fit acceptable?” Alana doesn’t miss how Margot keeps her hands on her body for longer than necessary.

She turns to look at her over her shoulder, her lips back in a flirtatious smile. “It’s perfect.”


	2. (Let's Do the) Time Warp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter is gonna get gory. I mean y'all knew that coming in, but just an extra precaution.

Will takes his time cleaning up, getting dressed, and heading down to the party. This whole house is making him feel uneasy, Lecter especially so. Eventually, however, Will dons the provided suit: a three-piece with a matching tie and red dress shirt included, plain black but of a silky, expensive material. It’s not nearly as extravagant as Lecter’s own suit, for which Wil is thankful, but he wonders where the spare clothing actually came from if not Lecter’s closet. Maybe it’s the butler’s?

His confusion heightens when he meets Alana downstairs in the foyer. She’s dressed in a black dress, sheer at the neckline and over her shoulders, designed so she appears to have black ribbons wrapped around her. She’s beautiful, and it fits her perfectly, which is what worries Will: Margot isn’t Alana’s size, so Lecter has another maid, or he has some kinky and/or murderous thing with collecting formalwear.

“I really don’t think we should stay here,” he whispers to her as Creepy the Butler leads them from the main doors to the ballroom.

“Will, I understand that this situation is far outside your comfort zone, but Dr. Lecter is being very kind to us and we can’t reject that,” Alana said, her voice quiet but with a clear undercurrent of annoyance. “Just stick close to me and I’ll handle the crowd. Before you know it, it’ll be morning and we’ll be driving home, okay?”

“Fine. But I still don’t like it here. Something is off,” he grumbles, even as he continues to follow Alana into the ballroom, head low and arms crossed. He doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes as they cut through the room, couples dancing gracefully on either side of them. They part before Mason like the red sea before Moses, easily drifting out of the way and then closing the gap behind the trio.

Will smells something divine and risks raising his eyes, and the sight rather shocks him: the ballroom is huge, with a high ceiling draped in chandeliers of crystal and real candlelight; on one side sits a small band playing hauntingly stunning classical music, featuring two men in their thirties/forties and a girl who couldn’t be over twenty; the other side, which their trio approaches like a sailboat caught in a riptide, is taken up completely by a kitchen. A real kitchen. A long counter in front, the backwall taken up by appliances, all the works (and clearly no expense spared). It makes Will’s jaw drop, but he quickly closes it when he meets Lecter’s eyes.

There’s no mistaking the hunger there and it makes Will uncomfortable. He’s not used to be wanted for anything other than his brain, and Lecter looks like he wants to devour Will whole.

Too quickly for Will’s liking, they reach the counter.

“Anything else, sir?” Mason asks his boss. The politeness is so obviously forced that Will sees it as a film of plastic over the butler’s features.

“That will be all, Mason,” Lecter says. “Go help Margot prepare for this evening’s main event.” Mason nods and leaves while Will tenses up all over again. None of this feels right.

“Are the accommodations to your liking?” Lecter asks, facing Alana. He’s picked up on Will’s antisocial disposition, then.

“Yes, extremely. We really can’t thank you enough.”

While Alana and Lecter share their niceties, Will lets his eyes wander back to the band. The music reverberates across the crowd and leaves Will wondering how so small a band can create invasive a sound. Will sees it as ivy crawling over the room, tangling the dancers and keeping them moving without their knowledge. Beautiful, but dangerous.

“Do you enjoy escargot?”

The question catches Will off-guard. His eyes fly to Lecter’s face, carefully avoiding his eyes, and he stumbles out his answer, “Yeah—yes, I think so. To be honest, I haven’t had much experience with it.”

Lecter smiles, thin and coaxing. “I must admit that it is one of my favorites. Come, I’ll let you try it before I serve my other guests.” He motions for Will to join him behind the counter.

Will does so, but moves cautiously. “You cook the food you serve yourself?” He keeps his eyes down and fidgets with the cuffs of his dinner jacket.

A finger under his chin forces his eyes up, though he still manages to avoid Lecter’s. “Such pretty eyes. Why do you hide them so?” Will feels his cheeks heating and jerks his head to look for Alana, only to find she’s left him.

“Where’s Alana?” he demands, stepping back to free himself from Lecter’s gentle grip.

“Margot came and whisked her off somewhere a few moment ago. I promised her I’d look after you, since you have an aversion to new people.” Lecter’s smile is too easy, his expression too keen to have Will all to himself. Will can’t tell if he’s lying, but he’d like to believe so.

“You’re new people,” Will bites. He immediately regrets being so harsh and so tacks on a pitiful, “but thanks.”

“You’re very welcome. Now, come taste test this for me.” Will goes to take the buttered-dipped morsel himself but instead finds the snail held to his lips by Lecter. Embarrassed, Will cautiously opens his mouth and is surprised with the grace Lecter uses to feed him.

“I can feed myself, you know,” Will says once he’s swallowed.

“I assumed so. However, since you deny me your eyes, I’m afraid I must take your mouth in exchange.” Lecter feeds him another morsel before Will can sputter his response. After he swallows, Lecter uses the finger-under-the-chin move again and Will lets him meet his eyes. “How does it taste?”

Will stares at the blood-and-earth color of Lecter’s eyes, watches his own reflection in the iris. He hadn’t meant to, but he lets himself become entranced, and his uneasiness from before (specifically about Lecter) begins to begins to shatter like a thin barrier of ice. “Good, it tastes good,” he says, allowing himself to look for just a bit longer:

He can see Lecter as Lecter sees himself, and Will sees a predator, a conqueror. A man who deserves wealth and title as innately as he deserves air and water. An heir of fire and gold. But Will also sees beyond that, to dark woods and broken bodies, to antlers grown as gnarled as tree roots and twice as strong. He sees blood, black in the moonlight, and carnage draped over with silk—  
Will forces his eyes away. His breathing is hard as he says, “I need to find Alana.” He disappears into the crowd before Lecter can take hold of him again.

 

Alana is mid-conversation with Dr. Lecter when Margot appears by Alana’s side. She’s out of her uniform and dressed in a formal pantsuit, all long legs and elegance between her heels and fitted white blazer. She looks like a woman out of Alana’s more pleasant fever dreams. It’s disorienting.

“May I borrow Dr. Bloom?” she asks Hannibal, although she’s already taken Alana’s arm in her own.

“Certainly,” Hannibal replies with a smile. At Alana’s instant turn to Will, he adds, “Please, enjoy yourself. I will look after dear William.” Will, who has been zoned out staring into the distance for the duration of their conversation, gives no indication that he minds.

“Thank you,” Alana says what must be the thousandth time as she allows Margot to lead her into the dancing mass.

“Has anything happened?” she asks as Margot positions her arms, easily leading her in a slow waltz.

“No,” Margot admits. “I just really wanted to dance with you before dinner is served.” Her smile is conspiratorial but with a hint of nerves. “Do you mind?”

Alana’s grip on Margot’s waist grows in confidence as she grins. “Not in the least.”

The pair dance, each holding the other close, and share trivialities and stories as each adjusts to the other’s movements and forms. They go on and on, circling the room at least twice before a frantic Will crashes into Alana and drags her off, sputtering apologies to Margot all the while.

Once he has her off to the side, hidden by the surging and relaxing movements of the dancers, he pours his anxieties onto Alana like an oil slick:

“Something here isn’t right. I used—I used my thing, my empathy, on Lecter, and what I saw is _dangerous_ , Alana, _dangerous_. We need to go, right now, politeness be damned!” The words spill from his mouth and he’s already begun dragging Alana to the door when a gong chimes, freezing every dancer mid-step.

“Dinner will be served momentarily. Please be seated,” Mason’s voice rings over the crowd. Alana can see him, dressed in a pinstripe suit that somehow strikes Alana as being more pretentious than Hannibal’s own suit.

Alana stops Will with a strong tug on his arm. “We can’t leave during dinner. Stay for the meal, and then I’ll make our apologies. We can sleep in the car, if that’s really what you want.” The fear in his eyes as Will nods has Alana rethinking her opinion of Hannibal. She hasn’t seen Will this scared since he recounted what was inside that last killer’s mind.

“Yeah, okay. I guess that’s okay.” Will begins to visibly relax after that, and he allows himself to be directed with minimal fuss to a seat at a table. Belatedly, Alana wonders when the long dining tables were set up over the dance floor.

 

Will wants to leave. His body is a wire pulled taught, ready at any moment to snap free and break for the exit. He hardly notices until he’s seated that the waiters are the two men from earlier, from the band. He’s placed near the head of what seems to be the main table. Alana is to his right, an empty seat to his left, and Mason and Margot’s jackets on chairs across the table. At the head, Lecter stands, wine glass and small utensil in hand.

All it takes it one strike of metal on glass and all chatter stops, every pair of eyes focusing on Lecter.

“Dear friends,” he begins, back straight and hands rested on the back of his chair. Like a royal, addressing his court. “I thank you all for your attendance. I know many of you have been rather busy this past season, but I am delighted that you set aside time for my own humble soiree. If you will permit me, I would like to introduce to you the first course.” He sweeps his arm out, motioning to the threads of servants who enter, carrying platters: Mason and Margot head two separate lines, Mason leading the two men from earlier while Margot leads the young girl from the band along with a poised, dark-haired woman Will hasn’t seen before. The small team makes quick work of placing the platters along the two long outer tables, then disappears before returning with the platters for the center, Hannibal’s, table.

“We will be having pain de champagne, made by a local artisan, and Sassicaia wine, imported directly from Tuscany.” As he speaks, the covers to the serving platters are whisked off simultaneously by the servants. “The bread’s mildly sour taste is complimented by the savory flavors of the wine. Overall, it should leave your palate prepared and your stomach hungry for more.” Lecter then sits and begins to dig in, leading his guests to promptly follow suit. The waiters disappear once again, only for Mason, Margot, and the young girl to reappear by the table and take their seats. At some point, Will isn’t sure when, his glass is filled with dark red wine.

Will catches the young girl looking at him, so he smiles meekly and feebly says, “Hi.” Her eyes, however, quickly dart back to her plate. His lips quirk up a little more. Maybe he’s found a bird of his particular feather.

The course ends quickly, as it’s just bread and wine, and Lecter rises from his seat. Looking back around the table, Will notices the servants have disappeared and so have everyone’s used plates. He downs the last of his wine, ignoring the side-eye he earns from Alana.

“For our second course, we will have escargot bourguignonne with Chateau Pêtrus.” The servants begin to place individual plates, each with five small snails. “Escargot is a dish that has been served since ancient times. In fact, the Romans ate snails as a symbol of status. Although its reputation as one of the most well-known delicacies may trick you into seeing this dish as commonplace, do not allow yourself to be fooled. Properly prepared, this dish can be as divine as true ambrosia. Please, enjoy.” Once again, Lecter sits, and everyone digs in.

“I’d like to thank you for acting as my guinea pig for this dish, William.” Will jerks his head to meet Lecter’s eyes.

“Please call me Will, Dr. Lecter.” Being called _William_ reminds him too much of his father for comfort.

“In that case, I insist you call me Hannibal,” he replies with another one of his coaxing smiles. Like his eyes are saying, _relax little lamb, this lion won’t snap your neck, I promise_. Will isn’t fooled.

“Alright, Dr. Hannibal.” Will sees Hannibal’s face twitch at the insistence of formality. Will feel like that’s a small victory, even if he may be waving a red flag at a bull.

Again, Will’s not sure when the wine is poured, but he’s thankful to have the alcohol on-hand.

Conversation at their portion of the table is stilted; Will’s as tense as a cabbie with a dead body in the backseat, Alana’s disgruntled since Margot is now refusing to meet her eyes, Mason is glaring at Will openly, the young girl refuses to look up from her plate, and Hannibal is too busy enjoying his own cooking to care. Will feels like the next three courses pass at a glacial speed.

There’s the salad, which has pomegranates so Hannibal makes a melodramatic (in Will’s eyes) summary of the tale of Hades and Persephone. He felt eyes on him for the duration of that course.

Then oysters with acorns and marsala. Hannibal decides the tale of Cleopatra drinking a pearl dissolved in wine is fitting for that course’s oration.

And then Hannibal serves _a whole goddamn suckling pig to each table_. Since it’s the first, yes _first_ , main course, Hannibal spends some extra time explaining the tradition of killing and serving baby pigs whole. Will can’t help but notice what a perverse pleasure Mason seems to get from the course. Will suspects it was he who brought and killed the pigs himself.

Luckily, each course also comes with its own glass of wine, so Will is thoroughly tipsy by the time they reach the _second_ main course: a braised roast, which is basically just a big chunk of meat cooked within clay. Of course, Hannibal, Mason, and Margot each simultaneously crack open a roast on each table. Their syncopation has gone from creepy to disturbing.

Hannibal takes his time preaching about how we all come from clay, and we all return to clay, et cetera.

Will is very, _very_ ready to leave this house and hide in the car. Or the mud. Just, anywhere but this stuffy dinner party.

He keeps this mentality until about half-way through the course.

“Thank you for inviting me this time, Hannibal,” a voice speaks up from Will’s left. Will notices how the girl plays with the ribbon at her neck until Lecter responds.

“You are very welcome, Abigail. I am delighted to have you grace my dinner table,” Lecter replies with his usual charm. What catches Wills attention is Hannibal’s little smirk following his polite smile. He’s planning something involving Abigail, something she doesn’t know about and (from Will’s experience) probably won’t like.

Will also doesn’t miss the way Hannibal watches him with a little more intrigue as Will finishes the meat, but he doesn’t have time to unpack that yet. “Dr. Hannibal, I’m sorry, but could I use your restroom?” Will asks, pinching Alana’s side under the table to signal her to follow.

Hannibal’s responding smile is coy; he figures Will is planning something but is cocky enough not to care. “Of course. Leave the ballroom through the main doors, then take your first left, down the corridor. It will be the first door on your right.” Will mutters his thanks, already standing to scurry out the door. He hears Alana push out her chair as he’s walking into the hallway.

“What excuse did you give?” He doesn’t ask until the pair is inside the bathroom, door locked but voices still hushed.

“I said I thought you might be having an episode, an anxiety attack. Hannibal looked like he bought it, but it’s hard for me to tell with him. What’s going on?” The concern in Alana’s voice is genuine. She thinks he _is_ having an episode.

“The girl. Abigail.”

“Yes?”

“He’s planning something with her, I just know it. And whatever it is—I’ve seen too many victim testimonies that start like this. And she’s just a kid, Alana.” He rubs his hands over his arms, cold with the thoughts of violent personalities overtaking his own, forcing him to act out the atrocities of others’ with his own hands. “We have to help her.”

Alana’s already nodding. She’s still suspicious, but she’s seen how he works, she knows about his 'gift'. She wants to believe him. “Okay…Okay, Will. I don’t know what you’re seeing in Hannibal, I certainly don’t see anything, but I know better than to doubt you. What do you want to do?”

He swallows, mouth dry from all the wine. “We-we need to stay. Here.” The words taste bitter on his tongue. “That’s the only way to find out what he’s planning. Just, to stay here and watch out for her.” Will can already see that the morning sun would find calamity in this house, but Abigail’s just a kid, a lost lamb with a lion vying for her neck. He _has_ to help.

A low hum from Alana shakes the ball-bearings of tangents from Will’s inebriated mind. “What?” he asks, fearing she’d changed her mind, decided, like so many before, that he’s lying, just a fool with a mind full of demons.

But Alana smiles, full and radiant, and Will can relax. “I was just thinking. We were sent out to answer a complaint with no threat behind it, and now we’re investigating a threat with no complaint in front of it. It’s a strange sort of parallelism.”

Without warning, Will pulls Alana into his arms, holding her so tight her responding laugh sounds choked. “Uh, Will?”

“Thank you—thank you.” He kisses the top of her head before loosening his hold.

“For what?” She’s not laughing, but her expression implies she might start.

“For believing me, for being patient with me, for—for everything.” He can always read Alana like a book, and all that he sees (mirth, relief, pride) pulls his lips into an unfamiliarly genuine smile. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because, Will,” she squeezes his middle, her strength forcing his chuckle into a sudden cough, “I could thank you for just the same.”

 

When his guests of honor return, Hannibal is disgruntled. William reeks of Dr. Bloom, and as his species only bolsters his existing possessive traits, it takes Hannibal a great deal of strength to stay seated. He would much prefer to stand and turn Dr. Bloom into the next course, on the table, right in front of his William.

And dear William _is_ his. He was the second Hannibal laid his eyes on him, the second Hannibal spoke to him and found the match he’s waited decades for.

 

It was the winter of 1917 in rural Lithuania. The Russian Revolution was coming to its end, and between that war and the Great War, the entire Russian subcontinent was starving. Almost every able-bodied man was dead, the rest were spreading disease to their home towns, and most of the crops had already been eaten or trampled by one army or another. The countryside was colored only by the bleak colors of rot and decay.

It was here that Hannibal Lecter became a man, and then more than a man.

The vagabonds came in the night. They killed his parents first, as their room was closer to the stairs. Hannibal heard the screams and ran to his sister, getting little Mischa up from bed before hiding them both within a closet. He was only nine years of age, Mischa six.

The men couldn’t find them, at first. They saw children’s rooms, but thought that perhaps Hannibal and Mischa were already dead, buried under the snow somewhere on the grounds. The children survived a full day in the closet before both became too hungry to ignore their needs any longer.

Hannibal left first, tried to steal some food from the kitchen, but he was caught. His scream drew out Mischa, who was then captured as well.

The vagabonds kept them alive for a week, locked in a cellar with no heat or sunlight. Hannibal had no idea why they were being kept or where they had gotten meat during the food shortage, but he didn’t dare ask, fearing they would kill Mischa on the spot. She was young, pure and innocent. He wanted her to live. More than anything in the world, he wanted her to live.

On the seventh day, the men came to take her. Hannibal fought back, broke one’s nose, but he was too cold and weak to truly save her. The next time he was fed, he asked where they had taken her. The men laughed and laughed, then left. Hannibal looked at the bowl of meat and thin broth, then promptly threw it, vomited, and wept.

The change came quickly, striking during the early hours of the next morning. While Hannibal imagined what hour it was, how long he had been trapped, or how many people he’d been fed, he began to feel very warm. It was very pleasant after being so cold for so long. But just as unexpectedly, the heat turned to frost, and within seconds Hannibal was a ball on the floor, feeling ice crystals form inside his organs even as his shirt stuck to his back with sweat.

Following the fever, he had hallucinations for hours: ones of Mischa that made him weep, ones of the men that led to him breaking his skin on stone walls and floors. He lost hours between the episodes; all he remembered was the pain when he came became one with his senses again.

It was all worth it, however, when the vagabonds returned, this time for him, the boy they had attempted to fatten to ripeness.

Their surprise transformed into screams of terror as his antlers grew, splitting skull and hair and thin, sickly skin. Claws formed over his nails, bursting cuticles that baptized his hands with anticipatory blood. By the time his teeth grew out, even and fatally sharp, forcing his jaw out of socket to accommodate their length, the thieves knew they stood no chance.

The first tried to flee, so Hannibal severed his legs, leaving him to crawl and marinate in terror, blood, and urine.

The second pleaded for mercy, on his knees, hands held in prayer. Hannibal slit open his gut and used his intestines to tie him into position, his innards wrapping easily around his wrists and thighs. The acidic bile burned Hannibal’s hands, but it was worth it to form his grotesque apostle, forever praying to an uncaring diety.

The third just sat, ignoring the wails of the others. The images alone had broken him. He didn’t care what happened, so long as it brought death. So Hannibal forbade him from dying: he locked the man in the same cellar that had been his prison and let him watch a Hannibal produced his meals; turning his captors into a form of jerky turned out to be both intuitive and therapeutic, and he loved how it tasted when accompanied by some of his parents’ older wines.

It wasn’t until much later that Hannibal discovered his species is called Wendigo: creatures of the night, transformed by cannibalism of those humans who died violent deaths. The name, however, didn’t matter. Long before he learned the term, Hannibal had deemed himself a God.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As for the second main course...
> 
> YOU ALREADY KNOW WHO IT IS! (this is sound cloud, no we don't)


	3. Interlude: Magenta and Riff Raff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More gore time!

Margot had always been in the shadow of her brother. Her father saw Mason as superior in every way: ability, intellect, gender, sexuality. It was disheartening, to say the least, but Margot soon found she fared better the further she was from her father and brother’s spheres of influence. She could never escape them completely, however. She could never be totally free.

“Papa can’t come down for dinner tonight.” As soon as the words left Mason’s mouth, Margot knew what had happened.

“Oh?” She tried to act surprised, to settle in at the table like she didn’t know she was next on Mason’s to-kill list. This had been a long time coming, and in a way, the twenty-two-year-old was relieved. No more waiting, staying up late at night, fearing how Mason would torture a surplus of tears from her before the hammer dropped.

The meal was a surprise. She hadn’t expected to be allowed a last supper. But it was good, some kind of roast or another, and she managed to enjoy it despite her impending demise.

“I know you know what’s happened.” She paused mid-bite and nodded to Mason’s question. “And you don’t care?”

“Papa always preferred you to me. Why should I waste energy mourning for him? He certainly wouldn’t have if you’d decided to kill me first.”

Mason’s laugh was a harsh bark, saturated in cruelty and perverse glee. “You even know what’s coming, and you don’t even bother to run. I have to admit, dear sister, I’ll miss you when you’re gone. It’s been so interesting, watching a broken animal submit to its cage.” The words sting, but not much. Margot had relegated herself to this life sometime in her teenage years. She had long learned not to hope for anything better, just ignorance of her existence.

“Your trying to kill me has always been a question of when, not if, Mason. You made your designs clear when we were children.” Mason hummed. Margot risked a smile; he sounded disappointed. He wanted her to be scared.

But she wasn’t scared. Margot found she was self-satisfied with her life, short as it had been. Which was why her stomach dropped when Mason left her at the table, unharmed by anything but the burden of waiting, again _waiting_.

“Sleep well, sister,” he said with a lilt as he passed her chair. Margot dug her nails into the finely polished table and willed the chill to leave her bones.

That night, Margot couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned in bed. One moment, she was too hot, the next too cold. Sweat stuck her hair to her forehead in messy curlicues.

“Did you think I’d let you survive the night?”

She whipped around to face Mason and saw more than felt the knife plunged into her uterus. Cold invaded her core, and she gripped her stomach, gasping as sanguine liquid overflowed from her hands. She felt like a sick fountain of youth, her ability to give life draining into Mason’s waiting pores. She struggled to move backward as he leaned down, towards the wound, but became caught in the blankets. Rough tongue dragged over the sinew of her torn womb. She felt bile force itself onto her tongue as she watched Mason sit up. He was so proud of his blood-coated mouth.

“Y’know, Margot, this was always the one thing you had that I didn’t. I wonder why I didn’t take it sooner?” His voice was too cheerful, too high in her ears. Her limbs felt like lead as she watched Mason lean back down. She could feel nothing but dread as teeth sank into the knife wound, could do nothing as ovary and intestine became torn red threads of flesh between her brother’s teeth—

She blinked, and she was alone.

Letting out a near-scream, Margot shot upright in her bed, checking her stomach and relieved to find only pale nightgown, no angry red incisions. The sob of relief that came seemed too loud to her. Her gasps came too forcefully. Her throat began to spasm, and she found her vocal cords failing as she screamed and began choking on air and imagined pain alone. Margot’s body felt foreign to her: kicking feet tangled in the alien sheets as desperate hands encircled her throat, sharp nails that were not hers piercing flesh when her lungs begged for air.

That delusion lasted less time, but when she next came back to herself, her throat did ache.

The hallucinations lasted the rest of the night, interspersed with blank periods where she awoke from a dream-like state in different rooms of the estate.

Dawn came and brought clarity; for Margot, it also brought strength.

 

 

 

Mason remembered the morning after his father’s death bitterly.

Killing his father had been easy, dull. He expected more of a fight from Papa Verger, but the man was old and no match for Mason’s determined spirit. He loved his father, of course, but he wanted his dynasty more than anything (which was in old Molson Verger’s hands until his demise). So, well…Something had to give.

It turns out, what gave was Papa Verger’s throat once Mason broke his hyoid. It seemed like appropriate, to Mason, to take the life from the man who’d given him his.

But Mason wasn’t finished yet; oh no, he had heard of a kind of beast, one made by cannibalization and pain. All one had to do was to eat someone who had died a violent death, and if you were up to snuff, you changed into said beast. In exchange for breaking social taboos, you received physical supremacy as well as an acute power to suggest. So, he had Cordell cook up what he could of Papa, then fed the rest to the pigs.

Mason had intended to kill Margot at dinner that night. He also planned on not telling her until just before her death what her meal had really been. But, towards the end of the meal, he began to feel strange. Not wanting to commit his fratricide until he could properly enjoy it, he went to bed, and proceeded to have the worst night of his life.

Fever, hallucinations, black outs. Like a bad LSD trip mixed with a hangover.

He thought it was all worth it in the morning, when he looked in the mirror and found himself crowned with warped antlers. Then, life kicked him in the nuts. Literally.

Margot found him still disoriented from his last hallucination. He turned to her, grinning as his new teeth grew in, and found himself graced with a swift knee to the scrotum.

“I’m afraid your plan backfired, Mason,” her voice was all too calm as she tore open his clutched stomach with two-inch claws. “Whatever you did to give yourself an edge, you did it to us _both_.” He gasped as those same claws ripped open his neck in search of an artery.

“ _Margot_ ,” his sing-song tone caught her off-guard, giving him the chance to slash open her lower torso. “You forget, I’m the heir. If you kill me, you get _nothing_.” He sprang forward, jabbing her again, avoiding a flailing claw.

“And you forget, _I’m too angry to care!_ ” A forceful shove landed him on his back, grunting to hold back a scream as she dug claws into his already-opened gut.

An antler to the stomach gave Mason space to stand, and with barely a second spent to breath, both twins pounced on the other.

 

 

 

Hannibal found the Verger twins two days after their transformations, starving and locked into a deathmatch. Their raging battle was drawing attention to Muskrat Farms, even with its position so far out in the country. While Hannibal would have preferred to leave the siblings to their feud, he could not permit his kind’s discovery. His best option was the halt the fight.

He found Margot first, panting and clutching a cavity filled with mangled sinew where her uterus should have been. She was starving and could barely move; the stable, her hiding place, was empty of other life, so it seemed Margot had freed the horses before either twin could use them for a snack.

When he dropped the body in front of her, her glassed-over eyes made their way to his. “Who are you?” she wheezed, weak but determined as she drew the flesh to her mouth gratefully.

“A friend.” A snort from her cut him off. He patiently waited for her to swallow a portion of soft flesh from the victim’s lower left torso.

“I apologize, but I don’t have many friends, especially not the sort to hand-deliver human meat. So, who are you, really?” She only stopped eating long enough to talk. Clearly, she was beyond famished.

“My name is Hannibal Lecter. I wonder, do you and your brother know what you have become, or the danger you are bringing to our entire species?” At her widened eyes, he doubted the answer was yes. “You are both Wendigo, now. Our kind is a rare and special breed, and your little war has drawn county attention. I’m afraid I cannot in good conscious allow our kind to be discovered, so I am here to offer you a choice: let me kill you, or let me train you.”

Margot stared at him for a good minute after that, just chewing and appraising. Then, she nodded decisively. “If you’ll control Mason, I’m willing to take some lessons.”

Hannibal’s smile was slow, pulling thin lips taught as it stretched over his face. “Excellent.”

While Margot recovered, Hannibal went about subjugating Mason. The boy was young and strong but ultimately no match for Hannibal’s expertise. He had the boy hogtied and agreeing to terms, under threat of torture and death, by sundown.

 

 

 

Mason thinks on that day as he watches Hannibal get huffy over his new boy-toy _William_. (Hannibal’s known the man for less than three hours, and Mason can already see the possessive gears a-spinning.) He hates that Hannibal broke him down like that, hates even more than Hannibal turned the Verger Estate, home of a meat-packing _dynasty_ , into his own Lithuanian castle-away-from-home. What he hates the most, though, was how unabashedly he chose Margot as his favorite. Mason realizes the hypocrisy, since he loved being his father’s favorite as a child, but he isn’t used to being anything but first and foremost and it’s been a struggle to adapt over the last decade or two. Years begin to run together when you’re a Wendigo, Mason has discovered. He’s also discovered you apparently stop aging after fifty, if Hannibal is any indication.

He’s saved from his ruminations by Hannibal himself.

“Mason, would you and Margot please prepare the basement? As our guests are only here for the night, I’d like to show them the full extent of our hospitality.”

Mason smiles and rises with Margot, happy to oblige if it gives him a chance to terrorize his sister some more. And while he hates to do Hannibal’s dirty work, or any of his work at all, he _is_ rather excited to see what he’s planning that involves the lab.

 

 

 

Agent Jack Crawford of the FBI is a criminologist, and a damn good one. It’s why he runs the Behavioral Science Unit, a unit designed to help profile and catch the most perverse, prolific, and clever criminals America has to offer.

And yet, despite his years of experience and multitudes of resources, a rash of disappearances has him stumped.

The case isn’t officially his, yet. Nevertheless, thirty people going missing over the course of a decade, three per year every year, seems like a BSU case.

The only reason Jack doesn’t yet have his fingers in this particular pie is the lack of bodies. But Jack suspects that problem will soon come to an end: the bodies disappear along the East coast, but along the West, someone has been using skeletons for art projects. Fucking field kabuki. The cases have been considered disconnected for ages, but when the DNA from the two files finally got moved into the national databases, the skeletons matched the missing persons. Well, one pair matched, but Jack whole-heartedly believes the rest will follow suit. He can already feel the texture of case files under his fingertips; he’s wanted this case for three years, and it will finally be his.

Whoever the killer is, Jack Crawford intends to _hunt him down_.


	4. (I'm Just A) Sweet Wendigo

Hannibal watches William fidget when he mentions the basement. When the twins slip off, he sees Alana watch Margot’s backside with obvious interest. He’s glad; her distraction will make his seduction of William easier.

But, in order to achieve Will, he has to first prepare him.

“Abigail, have you introduced yourself to our guests yet?” He smiles fondly at her and is happy to see her mirror response. Her trust in his judgement trumps her dislike for these sorts of social situations.

“No, sorry. That was rude, wasn’t it?” she asks, smile now self-deprecating.

“Yes, it was.” He uses a disappointed tone with a small frown. It works, and she looks back at her plate, ashamed. “However, it is easily remedied.” Her smile is eager, quite to placate.

“I’m Abigail Hobbs,” she turns and introduces herself to William and Alana, shaking their hands in turn. It’s awkward, as they are sitting beside her, but Hannibal suspects any bumbling will only further endear her to William.

“Will Graham.” As he predicted, Will’s responding smile is sincere and kind. He already feels protective of young Abigail.

“Alana Bloom.” Alana’s smile is similarly kind. Abigail must have been what they discussed during their absence, then.

“Abigail is my ward. Her father and mother were killed in a tragic accident.” Abigail winces at the mention of her parents, causing his William’s brow to furrow in concern. The seeds are planted, and now it was time to allow them to grow. “Dr. Bloom, I wonder, could I borrow you for a moment?” Alana nods, a tad too uneasily for Hannibal’s liking, and mimics him when he rises from his chair and walks towards the main entrance to the ballroom. Behind them, a trio of servants work to clean away plates. He must hurry if he wants to introduce dessert on time.

With quick footsteps, he leads Alana outside. “I’m afraid I must ask something rather personal, Dr. Bloom.”

Her smile is relaxed, but he sees her guard is raised. “Call me Alana, please, Dr. Hannibal. I can’t promise I’ll answer, but ask away.”

Hannibal’s lips quirk politely. “Of course, only answer if you deem appropriate.” He allows a beat of silence and for his smile to slip. “I must admit, I’m a bit worried about Mr. Graham. I understand his dislike for social situations, but it seems he is opposed to me in particular. I did make certain overtures; have I made him uncomfortable?”

Her eyes widen. She wasn’t expecting the question; good. “Oh, no, Will’s like that with everyone at first. You’re flirting with him?” He can practically see the gears spinning in her mind as she works over previous estimates of Hannibal’s character.

Hannibal shapes his smile to seem shy, bashful. “Yes, I am. If he’s heterosexual or deeply uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality, I promise to stop my advances at once.”

Alana shakes her head and smiles broadly. Her guard is slipping. “No, no, he’s not straight and he knows it. He’s, well, you can guess how he feels about flirting, though.”

“Ahh, I see. I promise to be gentler moving forward.” It’s a lie, but for the best. The reshaping he must do of William’s mind is brash, uncomfortable. That is what it will take to poise William to accept the future Hannibal offers him. His physical transformation will also be vicious, but afterwards…

When all is said and done, the process won’t have been gentle in the slightest, but William will thank him nonetheless and accept Hannibal into his core.

Hannibal ends the conversation and herds Alana back to the table before he can become too eager and compromise his own plans. He must remain patient, patient.

 

 

 

Will watches uneasily as Alana follows Lecter out of the ballroom/dining room combo. He’s worried, but Alana can handle herself, and this gives Will an opportunity to learn more about Abigail.

The problem is Will has never been one for conversations, or social shit in general. He clears his throat before asking awkwardly, “How did you come to be under Dr. Lecter’s care?” She jerks slightly at the question. It’s cruel, but he’s glad she’s as uncomfortable with the interactions as he is.

“Oh—Uh, Hannibal was there when the accident happened.” The following pause is a tad too long. Her fingers loop in the bow tied around her throat. “He’s a doctor, and all that, so he…helped. After that, I just sort of wound up here.” Her shrug is nonchalant but does nothing to fool Will’s empathy: there’s much more of a story to that accident, and the story is as dark as it is _strange_. Something very disturbing is going on in this house.

Will needs her to trust him to get the full story. He fiddles with the cuffs of his dress shirt. “I lost my parents, too. My mother when I was very young, my father when I was older—”

“Why are you covering your accent?” Abigail’s sharp wit throws Will off. He has to blink for a moment before he can answer.

“I’m sorry, I’m doing what?” His tone isn’t quite as polite as it should be, but then neither is hers.

“You have an accent. I can tell. But you’re covering it up. Why?” Her eyes narrow and Will is struck by the intentions behind them. She’s curious, yes, but mostly _protective_.

“My accent, it’s pretty distinctive, when I don’t hide it. People start to focus more on that than what I’m saying.” That seems to satisfy her defensive streak. She relaxes back against her chair and Will finds himself doing the same.

“You don’t have to do that, here.” She faces forward; the conversation is unarguably ended. Will does the same until the Doctors return.

“Let’s have dessert, shall we?” Lecter says before sharing a smile with Abigail, which she returns too readily.

 

 

 

The dessert courses, because _of course_ there has to be more than one, carry on relativity uneventfully. Relative being the key word since everything Lecter does is a goddamn performance, but it’s par for the course. Lecter also keeps eyeing him like he’s a nice cut of meat, but whenever he looks to Alana for assistance, she’s staring intently at her food. Will is relieved when the last plates are removed and he has time to talk to Alana.

Lecter sends the pair back up to their rooms while he bids goodbye to the other guests.

Will follows Alana into her room and wastes no time shutting the door behind him. “Are you okay?”

Her laugh is little more than a huff. “Usually I’m the one asking you that.”

“Well, this time I’m returning the favor. What did Lecter say when he pulled you out?” Alana sits on the bed, body heavy, so Will sits next to her. She leans into his side with a grateful smile.

“Not much. Just that he likes you.”

Will barks out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, well, he’s made that pretty obvious. He spent dinner watching me like I’ll be his next meal.”

“Mmm, you could be, if he decides he wants to _eat out_ …” Will shoves her lightly and falls back onto the bed, giggling. Alana does the same.

“I think I had too much to drink,” he admits, pulling Alana close with one arm and kissing her forehead. “As long as you’re okay, I think I’m gonna go to bed. We can figure how to help Abigail in the mornin’.” He narrows his eyes at her as she devolves into another giggle fit. “What?”

“Your accent is slipping. You really did drink too much.” She sits up and slips off the bed, grabbing his arms to pull Will up too. “C’mon. I’m fine and we both need to sleep off the alcohol. We’ll wake up early tomorrow and figure everything out.”

When he’s standing, Will envelopes Alana’s smaller form in a bear hug. “You’re the best. Do you know that?”

Her laugh reverberates against his chest. “Yep. Now, go to bed!” She wiggles out of his grip and pushes him to the door, smiling all the while.

“G’night,” he says, waving as he’s forced out of her room and into the hall. He misses the mechanical eyes following him as he disappears behind his door.

 

 

 

“What do you think of William?” Abigail starts when she realizes the question is directed at her.

“Oh, I guess he’s fine. Awkward.” She pauses for a moment and stares at the counter she’s cleaning. “He was trying to ingratiate himself to me. Do you know why?”

She more hears than sees the quirk in Hannibal’s lips. “Did it concern you?”

“Of course. I…don’t like the idea of anything threatening our family.” It’s strange to use that word, _family_ , now. It tastes different on her tongue. More metallic than it was before.

“He made you suspicious.”

“Yes.” She stops cleaning altogether and faces her guardian. “Why are you asking?”

Hannibal keeps his back to her. “Do you trust me, Abigail?”

“Yes.” The answer is immediate, absolute.

“Then I’m afraid I must ask you for a leap of faith. I have a favor to ask of you, and though I cannot yet tell you why you must do this, it is extremely important you follow my instructions to the letter. Do you understand?” Now, he turns to face her, lip quirk gone and expression humorless.

“This is important to you, right?” Hannibal answers her question affirmatively with a shake of his head. “Then of course, absolutely.” Warmth blooms in her chest when he responds to her eager smile with a proud one of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I write Will as too happy of a drunk, but... It's too fun to write drunk BFF things between him and Alana, ok??


	5. Cold Patootie - Bless My Corpse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is bad, I know, and I apologize. 
> 
> Gore time again!

Both Will and Alana are woken up by a strong, short knock at their doors. “I’m afraid the night’s festivities aren’t quite through,” Lecter’s voice announces from the hall.

Begrudgingly, Will stumbles out of the nice, soft, warm bed and opens his door. “Why can’t we _sleep_?” he grumbles, eyes hard as diamonds and twice as sharp when he meets Lecter’s _goddamn smiling face, the fucker_.

“If I only have you for the night, I must use every second to my advantage, yes?” The bastard’s eyes are even sparkling. If he wasn’t drifting somewhere between tipsy and hungover, Will would have punched him. Alana emerges from her room in the same red silk kimono-pajamas/nightgown-thing that was left for Will (which he now regrets forgoing because he’s only in boxers in front of Mr. Eat-You-With-My-Eyes).

“What’s going on?” she mumbles, smearing leftover eyeliner as she rubs the sleep from her eyes.

Will disappears back into the room to grab his undershirt while Lecter waxes poetic on why he woke them up. Fucker.

When he comes back out, now dressed in his clothes from the ill-fated car ride, Alana is smiling, but Will is glad to see the latent tension in her shoulders. She’s on her guard. It relieves some of the anxiety coiled around his stomach, although he feels like the same snake has sunk its fangs into his temple. When did he get such a bad headache?

“Please, follow me.” Lecter walks off in the direction away from the main hall. He and Alana make eye contact before following. To help Abigail, they’ll need to play along, for as long as they can.

“And you’re positive Abigail is in danger?” Alana asks under her breath. The pair drop back further, still following Lecter but now further out of his range of hearing.

"Pretty damn positive,” Will replies in the same low tone. “I mean, did you get the sense that _anything_ going on in the house is totally on the up-and-up?” Alana’s shrug is as good as any form of agreement. And really, how much of a sacrifice is a good night’s sleep anyway, when someone’s life is on the line? When he poses the question to his therapist-turned-best friend, he’s unsurprised to see her grimace.

“Will, how many times do you tell yourself that in a week?”

Will grunts in reply, though he does concede the point. “Too often.”

The corridor continues for a long time, and Will can’t tell if it’s just his sleep-deprived imagination that’s making hall darker and thinner. Finally, Lecter stops and opens a wide door, which turns out to be an old-style elevator.

“After you,” he says, opening the grate and ushering the pair in with a sweep of his arm. Will barely retrains himself from glaring at Lecter’s eerily happy mood, which only seems to make the asshole happier. He’s acting like a cat that ate a whole damn pet store full of canaries. _And I hate cats_ , his wine-soaked brain unhelpfully supplies.

Will had heard Lecter mention a basement at dinner, so he’s not too surprised when the elevator starts to sink instead of climb. He glances over at Alana but finds her focused on the concrete wall rushing by behind the elevator grate. Lecter’s also deep in thought, and Will’s empathy doesn’t quite stretch to reading minds, so he’s left in the dark.

Then, the elevator stops with a slam and bounces once on its cables before the dark becomes literal: the lights all go out, then the door slides open, and the world is filled with red.

Lecter ushers the pair out while Will struggles to adjust his eyes.

“Why the infrared?” He manages to hide the wariness in his voice but still attaches himself to Alana’s side. Why the fuck does a man need a basement lit with infrared lighting? Who the fuck needs that outside a dark room or lab or some shit? Will’s head is beginning to pound and he’s wound his shoulders so tight he feels about ready to pop, a cork in a Champaign bottle left in the sun too long.

“This,” Lecter’s voice whispers, hot on Will’s ear. On instinct, Will begins to spin, fist ready to threaten or fight or anything—

Then the lights come up, and everything spinning in Will’s head comes grinding to a halt.

 

 

 

Margot watches from the mezzanine as Hannibal brings Alana and William inside the basement laboratory.

“Oh, Margot, why are you frowning?” Her brother’s voice makes her hands tighten around the railing, her teeth gritting as he leans in closer to whisper, “If Hannibal cooks your little girlfriend for us, she’ll be serving much more of a purpose, anyway.” His words feel like grease and oil coating her skin. Disgusting and a pain to wash away. She shoves off of the railing and walks off, ignoring Mason’s laugh as he continues to mock her.

She doesn’t know what Hannibal plans on doing to Alana, but she won’t let anyone hurt her. That much she resolved the second she saw the woman. Love at first sight is a stupid concept and one she’s never believed in, but protectiveness at first sight? That’s much more plausible. She doesn’t need Alana to love her; she just needs the woman to leave this house alive. Still human may be too much to pray for.

Margot runs down the metal stairs, experience and habit allowing her to miss the squeaking step so she can reach Hannibal and their guests with minimal noise. But when she reaches them, Hannibal’s eyes are focused on William, who’s gaping and saying something Margot doesn’t bother paying attention to. She chances a sigh of relief; Hannibal’s after William. He couldn’t care less about Alana, which will only make tonight easier.

By avoiding the creating tiles, the damaged slabs of concrete Mason hadn’t bothered to fix, Margot reaches Alana and draws little attention in the process. Hannibal is dragging William into the center of the room, and now she sees why he had Mason unlatch the freezer and raise the temperature. Hannibal’s planning on a bloodbath with his new specimen caught in the center. Alana moves to follow. One swift step and Margot is behind her, one hand on her wrist, the other covering her soft lips. “Stay quiet.” Dark hair bobs as Alana nods, then Margot is leading her behind a plastic curtain, into the bowels of the house.

Rusted paneling flies by in her peripherals, feet moving on instinct. These hallways, passageways in the dark, had been her solace before and would be again tonight. One slat, more worn down than the rest, Margot rips from the wall. She urges Alana inside, follows, and bends the metal back into place.

"They won’t find us here,” she promises, inviting Alana to sit on the blanket-covered concrete as she does the same. Her lips quirk in a rueful smile as she says, “I’m sorry. I know you deserve better than my hole in the wall, but I need to talk to you while Hannibal’s distracted. This may be my only chance.”

“What—why—” Alana sputters, concern flowing from her like smoke from a fire, feeding itself and growing stronger.

“Please, let me explain.” Margot gestures for Alana to sit again. This time, the other woman takes the offer. “In short, this place is dangerous. You need to get out. I can show you a shortcut to the highway from here, but you need to promise you’ll never co—”

“What—”

“Please, let me finish.” She watches Alana closely until she resettles, shoulders slumping and leaning against the grimy wall. Margot wishes she had time to appreciate the sight Alana was, a study of oversaturated colors between the red silk and her black hair, a total contrast to the swirl of aged metal behind her—but there’s no time.

“Hannibal knows that you two planned on helping Abigail. He planned it that way. He’s toying with you both, tricking you into position, and you can’t let him. Promise me, you won’t let him.”

 

 

 

Hannibal watches Will closely as the lights flick on, one row at a time. His mouth is gaping, a frog in a boiling pot only now realizing his doom; it’s only the eyes that displease Hannibal. Usually, he enjoys that first burst of shock and fear when he brings his chosen few to has private lab. But not with his William. He wants those storm-blue eyes to fill only with devotion, love, pride when he views Hannibal’s work.

“Do you like my pet project?” he asks, easily leading William by his elbow from beneath the mezzanine’s grated-metal walkway and under the full florescence of the laboratory lights. The harsh light reveals the sheen of sweat already sticking to his William’s forehead, making Hannibal smile. When he turns and sees no Dr. Bloom to tug along, he nods to Mason, a signal to find his sister and wherever she has undoubtedly hidden away their other guest.

“ _Like?_ ” William asks, tearing his arm from Hannibal’s grip to turn and stare at him. Accusing, like so many had been before. Hannibal’s smile falls. This will take _much_ more work. “You—you’ve—”

Hannibal’s sigh cuts him off. “Yes, I understand the subject is rather grisly, but I took you to be a man of science. Do you not find any part of my work fascinating?”

William’s eyes go from outraged to plain engaged without further warning, leaving Hannibal reeling when the object of his affection’s fist collides with his jaw. “You have _corpses_ hanging from your ceiling! Sitting in vats—what the _fuck_ are you doing down here? Where did you even get them!” He punctuates his questions by shoving Hannibal’s chest, his anger making the lithe man seem closer to Hannibal’s larger size. It’s rather frightening, or it would be for a human, and Hannibal finds his blood singing in result. His dear William is worthy, indeed, of the honor Hannibal has bestowed him.

“Now, now, you will get no answers if you don’t calm down,” he says, hands outstretched and placating, like William is a wild animal. And he might as well be, for how he seems to be roiling within his skin. “I was given these bodies by a local university. My basement acts as a body farm of sorts for them—we place bodies in strange conditions to see how they decompose. Those vats you pointed out are filled with porous materials and smelling salts to control the odor.” Or, rather, they are filed with spices and salt for treating the meat, but the lie is close enough to the truth.

The explanation grabs his attention, causing the other man to meet his eyes. With a bit of focus, William begins calm, breathing steadying and shoulders slouching. His darling’s empathy makes him even more subject to Hannibal’s powers of suggestion, and the acquiescent side it inspires in William is beautiful indeed. How had fate delivered him such a perfect—

“Hannibal.” He jerks his head away to meet Abigail’s eyes, smiling to match her expression, the miasma he had generated to control William dissipating smoothly.

“Abigail, welcome. Please, join us. William and I were just discussing my work for the university.” He watches as she strides from the elevator, joining William and Hannibal to form a small triangle. His William, calm now, nods to Abigail. He mutters an apology to Hannibal while his breathing settles.

“What do you think of it?” Abigail asks.

William shrugs before answering. “A bit grotesque for my taste, but interesting nonetheless.” Hannibal feels his smile tighten and decides to change the subject before he risks any impulsive behavior.

“Would you please allow Abigail and I to get to know you further? She admitted to me in confidence that she’s rather curious about you being a detective and such, and I must now admit to feeling the same.”

William glances at Hannibal; one accidental slide of his eyes against Hannibal’s has him shrugging. “Sure. I mean, I don’t mind.”

“Wonderful!” he says, then nods to Abigail, who nods back minutely. She is well aware of her role in this scene.

“What kinds of crimes do you investigate?” she asks, eager and with a shy smile.

“Uh, murder. Serial killers and all that. But, uh, I’m not _exactly_ like a real detective.” William’s eyes fall from Abigail to her shoes.

“How so?” She doesn’t let up with her inquisitiveness. Sharing secrets, sources of shame, will forge a stronger bond faster, after all. If it wouldn’t ruin the illusion, Hannibal would express his pride in Abigail.

“I’ve had, well, issues. With mental health. So I’m off active duty, so my main job right now is as a profiler. Actually, Ala—” His dear best friend hadn’t been retrieved yet, so Hannibal interjects.

“Profiler? Is that where you’ve had your run-ins with serial killers?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve got this thing, Alana calls it an empathy disorder, so I’m really good at getting inside people’s heads.” A small smile quirks up his lips, but his eyes are mournful. A source of pride and fear, then.

“Yes, Dr. Bloom did mention that to me earlier,” Hannibal says with a solemn nod, an indication for Abigail.

Not missing a beat, Abigail asks, “What’s that like? I mean, it must be scary, being inside killers’ heads all the time.” The look of appreciation William directs at Abigail lets Hannibal know she’s succeeded. His William is now emotionally attached to his ward. Everything is going to plan, aside from Margot’s own attachment to Alana, but both of the Verger twins will be dealt with by the end of the night, anyway.

“I must attend to something. Please, you two continue talking.” With a polite expression, he exits the trio. He keeps his movements innocuous as he moves around the lab, ever so slowly circling the lower level before moving to the mezzanine, taking his time wherever possible. When he glances down, William and Abigail are still deeply engrossed in their conversation. William is even freer with his expressions now, laughing at quips from Abigail and motioning with his hands, his dearest Alana forgotten. (Which is for the best; one more whiff of that woman’s scent on his William’s body might have had Hannibal acting prematurely.)

Hannibal chooses this moment to hit the release on the freezer door.

The siren blares, a warning to everyone in proximity. He places an expression of shock and worry into place as he rushes to the stairs, knowing he will be too late.

 

 

 

Abigail jerks her head up at Hannibal when the siren blares. Her expression of shock and fear is genuine, unlike her guardian’s. This must have been what he had been planning.

Even knowing this, she can’t keep the horror from her eyes, the snarl from her lips when the walk-in-freezer door bursts open, a man of ice and rotten flesh pushing himself from its confines—

 

 

 

Will reacts on instinct, drawing his sidearm from the rear band of his boxers, hidden safely under his still-damp clothing.

The fear in Abigail’s eyes is unmistakable; he shoves her behind him, shouting warnings over the blare of the siren.

The body, the freak, whatever it is, charges at them both—skin dripping like cold fat from exposed bones, teeth revealed in a lipless mouth, frost covering unseeing eyes and blood-coated button-down—and Will fires. One round to the heart.

The thing doesn’t stop.

He fires again.

And again.

And again.

He empties the clip, hitting torso and neck and finally frontal lobe—

The freak drops on the last shot, oozing pudding-like brain matter from the holes in his skull, body dropping like a blood clot onto sterilized tile—

Then Abigail is in his arms, and he’s cradling her head because she’s sobbing, and Hannibal is there and asking questions he can’t answer, and his arm is being pulled, and he’s walking backwards—backwards—until his knees hit something, he falls back, arms cradling nothing now, gun still in a death-grip, trigger finger still poised—then the gun’s gone too, and his head is leaned back, and finally—finally—he can rest.


	6. Interlude: Columbia and Eddie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> moore gore. weeeeee. 
> 
> Also, please note that the way I did the Columbia and Eddie relationship is very different from the movie, as here they're father and daughter instead of lovers. No incest, basically.

“What the _fuck_ was that,” William demands, once he’s come back to himself. Hannibal sighs, for all the world looking distraught. Although, he knows that for all his miasma, William can see through his lies with a glance, so he turns to face his lab and leaves his back to William. A blessing and a curse, his love’s empathy.

“A mishap, I’m afraid.” He allows the silence to grow and settle before he continues. “To be more accurate, that vile beast was all that is left of Abigail’s father.”

He can feel the intrigue and rage boiling over in his darling’s mind.

“He was _what_?” he demands, standing on still-wobbly legs to whip Hannibal around by the shoulder. Hannibal sneers in pure distaste. Garret Jacob Hobbs was a disgrace.

“In biological terms, and only biological, he was her father.”

“That doesn’t explain why he was in your freezer!” he yelps, then makes the mistake of looking into Hannibal’s eyes. Once Hannibal has forced him to calm, the older man continues.

“I suppose you deserve to know how Abigail became my ward. A few years ago, when Abigail was only fifteen…”

From there on, the story is a complete lie, but it is close enough to the truth that Will cannot see through it. The true story is much more visceral than he can chance revealing to his William, for now.

 

Hannibal Lecter had become a well-established veteran of Baltimore high society, his takeover of the now-former Muskrat estate undisputed and unquestionably accepted. It was an accomplishment, and one he should have been able to celebrate over a fine wine with an even finer cerebellum pâté. 

Instead, he was left brooding over the _Times_.

A Wendigo was making waves in Minnesota. Some careless, idiotic brat who hadn’t the good sense to hide his mistakes.

Hannibal had kept tabs on the disappearances in Minnesota; multiple girls, same physical type, taken in predictable increments. The perfect description of either a serial killer or one of his kind (albeit with a preference), so no true bother, but a distant threat nonetheless. Now that the fool had returned a victim, however? Hannibal was furious.

The article told as much as he needed: human and animal-like bite marks, signs of cannibalism, antler-esque puncture wounds. Even a profiler who reported the body was returned to the parents because cancer made her _less appetizing_ —

The lack of foresight was deplorable. 

Clearly, the defective Wendigo must be taken out of circulation.

He left detailed instructions for Margot and, by proxy of Margot handling the estate, Mason. Then, it was only a quick flight until he reached the latest abduction site. A quick flash of miasma, and he had all the files he needed, though he would have to come back to retrieve that particular witness: some weak-minded trainee, a girl named Lass, if he wasn't mistaken.

The fact that it took Hannibal all of an hour to track down Mr. Hobbs was only further proof that the man needed to be disposed of. If Hannibal could find him so easily, the police wouldn’t be too far behind. It was until he reached the house, actually, that things got messy.

“Mrs. Hobbs, I presume?” A flash of a smile, an easy suggestion, and he was let inside. “Might I enquire after your husband?” She sat him in the living room, all suburban glee while she promised to find the man in question. Such a shame to have to kill her, really.

Hannibal toed off his shoes and slid on latex gloves before following her. When they reached the kitchen, Mrs. Hobbs leading and Hannibal just out of sight behind her, he grabbed the first kitchen knife available. “Mr. Hobbs. You don’t know me, nor should you.” 

The shocked face of the laborer morphed into horror then rage as Hannibal cleanly sliced open his wife’s throat.

“What—who—” The look of pure fury on the man’s face didn’t affect Hannibal in the slightest. He dropped the wife’s body unceremoniously to the floor, face emotionless as he checked the fit of his gloves.

“I suppose you could call this a courtesy call.” He looked up, meeting Hobbs’s eyes with a knowing look even as he continued with affect flat, “They know.”

Mr. Hobbs began to hyperventilate, working himself up into an adrenaline-filled crescendo. “No—no—they can’t, I was so careful, so, _so careful_ —”

“I found you, didn’t I?” Hannibal began to approach, careful step after careful step, Hobbs mirroring him as he fought to maintain distance from the lion in the room. “The police won’t be far behind. You see, Mr. Hobbs, I share your species; it would be a tragedy if our existence came to light thanks to your foolhardiness. So I’ve come to clean up your mess, as it were.” Hannibal nearly had Hobbs pinned to the counter when he fled, running, not for the front door, but a side hallway. 

Hannibal followed, not a half-step behind. If there were more witnesses in the house, those would have to be dealt with too. At the end of the hallway, Hobbs ducked into a room, and a glint was all the warning Hannibal received:

Once inside, he saw Hobbs, holding a young girl against him like a human shield, another kitchen knife to her throat. “See? _See?_ ” he was hissing into the girl’s ear, then a jerk of his arm, and blood was flying from her neck. A fine rain of red, staining wall and carpet and Hannibal’s suit. Again, very rude. Hannibal wasted no time approaching Hobbs and thrusting the knife into his temple, causing the man to crumble to the ground, resembling any painting of a drunken Dionysus disappointing Zeus. 

As Wendigos do not actively bleed due to a lack of pulse, Hannibal intended to take Hobbs and leave the bodies and the knives. A solution to both the FBI’s serial killer issue and his own threat to discovery in one drop of the hatchet. But the young girl was still bleeding at his feet, gasping as blood flooded her trachea and strangled her. She was still alive.

On a whim, Hannibal knelt down and helped her—healed her wounds, put her to sleep with a sedative from his car, and took both her and her father back to Baltimore in a rented car.

Soon after that moment, that choice, Hannibal had decided that his whim had been a very good whim, indeed.

 

“So, you and your brother and Hannibal, you’re all…” Alana trails off. It’s clear to Margot that she’s having trouble grasping the concept.

“Wendigos,” Margot provides, calm as she explains her reality. She does crack a small smile for Alana’s benefit.

“I don’t know what to say.” Alana has her head in her hands, still propped up against the dirty wall in Margot’s hideaway. Soft but strong hands peel Alana’s fingers away, cup her cheeks and lift her eyes to the other woman’s.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just believe me.” It makes one more piece of her remaining humanity shrivel and fall from her soul, but she uses her miasma. She hates using it, hates having to manipulate people the way Mason and Hannibal do, but Alana needs to trust her if she’s going to survive. “Do you believe me?” Alana’s face relaxes, once muscle at a time, and Margot watches her eyes glaze over. Then she nods.

“Yeah—yes, I do.”

Gunshots rip both pairs of eyes to the exit. “Will—he’s—I have to—” Alana lunges for the door, but Margot catches her wrist then pulls her to a loose panel opposite the way they entered.

“Trust me, he’s fine. Hannibal needs him alive. But he _doesn’t_ need you alive, so you need to _go_ —” Another loud bang stops her dead—well, undead—in her tracks. And there’s Mason, tossing the loose panel to the floor, dusting off his gloves with his signature grin. Margot feels a growl build up in her trachea. 

“Dear sister! You were recalling going to steal this tasty morsel for yourself?” She shoves Alana behind her back as Mason steps closer. “Stealing food from the kitchen counts, I believe, as very rude. Hannibal’s going to be _furious_.” The amount of glee in his tone and eyes, like an ill-fitting suit, hardly match the words.

The growl escapes her throat. Mason raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth to make some awful comment, but Margot bites out first, “You touch her, you _die_.” Mason throws his head back and dares to laugh, and then the last of Margot’s patience is gone, and she shoves Alana backwards as she launches herself onto her brother, claws ripping through cuticle—

Mason may be the stronger twin, but his hubris also makes him the stupider of the pair. He has his guard down, can’t defend himself in time, and Margot’s knees connect with ribs and throws them both to the floor.

A wall of dust flies up to surround the grappling twins, but it’s nothing to shield Alana from the view of Margot—bulging eyes, antlers and fangs on full display—digging her claws into Mason’s left cheek and ripping off the bottom half of his face. The flap of flesh, bottom lip to neck, lands to the side with a wet noise. Blood spills from Mason’s face; in a moment of weakness, he touches declawed fingers to the tendrils of blood vessels hanging from the remnants of skin clinging to his exposed jawbone.

Margot doesn’t hesitate.

A choked noise comes from Mason’s permanently-open mouth when Margot pierces the back of his neck with her claws. He collapses to the floor, eyes wide and bulging and still shining, when she snips his brainstem.

Margot looks up, over her heaving chest and Mason’s corpse, to a very still Alana. Panting heavily, she says, “Are you okay?” Another slick noise comes from Mason’s body as Margot slowly retracts her claws, bits of brain matter clinging to her fingers. 

“I’m, yeah, I’m.” Alana freezes. She leans over, and Margot politely looks away as she loses what’s left of Hannibal’s cooking from her stomach. When the sound of retching dwindles until there’s only heavy breathing, Margot looks back. Alana’s expression is determined. Woozy, but determined nevertheless. “He was going to eat me?” she asks, voice rough.

“Yes.” Margot can’t keep the disgust from her voice. “He wasn’t even hungry; he just wanted to eat you because I…enjoy your company. In that way, it’s my fault this happened. I’m sorry.” She stands and takes Mason’s waistcoat, using it to clean the blood from her hands. “If Mason found us, it means Hannibal sent him after us. We need to get you out of this house, now.” Alana, however, shakes her head.

“No. We can’t.”

“What? Alana, you’ve seen what we can do—what Hannibal will do to you—”

“He has Will, right? And he’s got plans for him?” Begrudgingly, Margot nods. “Then we need to help him.” Margot wants to say no, beg Alana to get out now, but her eyes are sincere and Margot can’t bear to use her miasma and force Alana to leave her friend behind.

“Okay. Fine.” She huffs and tosses Mason’s ruined waistcoat back onto his body. “But you know what you’re getting into.” She meets Alana’s eyes and makes an expectant expression.

Alana meets the look with an intensity she hadn’t shown until now. “Yes, I do.”

Margot turns and leads the other woman back out of the bowels of the house.


	7. I Can Build You a Woman

“Ah! Margot, Alana. You’ve returned,” Hannibal says, sounding cheerful despite his thin smile not quite reaching his eyes. “But, wherever has your brother gone?”

Will doesn’t miss the way Alana stiffens at the question, even as Margot says, “Jimmy and Brian had some…trouble in the kitchen. Mason went along to help.” Hannibal must catch on, too, since he moves backwards towards Will, almost defensive. He begins a mental retort, but finds his ire dies quicker than usual. Actually, after the event with Abigail’s dad, Will almost appreciates the gesture.

He feels he is beginning to understand Lecter more fully now, and some of his earlier distaste has melted into a kind of curiosity. It’s making his moral compass flip around like he’s stuck it to a magnetic pendulum, but Will has never had much luck in controlling what his mind does with things.

“May I ask why you sent for me?” Margot inquires.

“Yes. Please bring a warm drink for our guests. One specimen, it seems, wasn’t completely dead when we began his experiment, and he terrorized poor William.” Margot nods and walks off. Will hears the elevator churn in the distance.

Alana is back at his side in an instant: “Are you okay? Were you hurt? Did you have any kind of breakdown, an episode?” Her medical training has kicked in, so her hands are flitting like no-see-‘ems over his pulse points, forehead, temples, neck. “Your heart rate is elevated, and you have a slight fever, but no other physical issues, as far as I can tell.” Will sees Lecter tense, presumably out of jealousy, out of the corner of his eye; he wants to laugh, but he knows that would be rude. He isn’t a ball for toddlers to do battle over, but if Hannibal wants to cast himself as the honorable knight of the kindergarten class, that’s his own prerogative.

“I’m fine, Alana. I’m shaken up, but that’s it. Lecter helped me through the shock, so that’s mostly worn off. I didn’t get wounded and had no kind of psychological freak-out. I promise I’m okay, really,” he says, smiling to put Alana at ease. She stares at him, and he knows it’s serious, but she looks a bit like an angry kitten and it makes him snort, so she shoves his arm, but he just wraps it around her and then they’re hugging and he can rest his chin on her head like he always does. The embrace feels like home, and he’s more thankful for it then he feels comfortable expressing in public, so he just whispers into her hair, “I’m really okay. I know you don’t totally believe me, though, so I’ll explain everything when we get back to our rooms.” She nods, chin bonking his sternum, and they break apart soon after. Lecter is politely checking on machinery when they look back at him.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” Alana says earnestly while giving Will’s hand a quick squeeze.

“Of course.” Will sees Hannibal’s serious demeanor, how his shoulders are relaxed now. He no longer sees Alana as a potential threat, though Will isn’t sure what that means for them, yet. “In fact, to get our minds off of the attack, how about I show you two what other projects we have running down here?”

“Y’all mainly do decomp research, right?” Will asks. He bites his tongue. Damn, his diction is slipping; _fuck_.

“Yes, but we also handle some more experimental projects.” Hannibal’s sly smile makes Will uneasy, but his curiosity is like the proverbial cat, risking danger to sate itself. “There is one project I am particularly invested in, if you would permit me to show you?” The doctor stands at attention, polite and unassuming (as much as one could be in a suit that gaudy) as he waits for an answer.

Will shrugs and meets Alana’s eyes. “What do we say?”

She looks weary, but clearly she’s also interested. “Why not?” She cracks a smile at Will before returning her focus to Lecter. “We’d love to see it.”

Lecter nods and passes them, climbing the stairs to the mezzanine and grabbing a chemist’s apron and latex gloves as he walks from the stairs to a large switchboard. As he suits up, removing his coat and waistcoat to lie neatly on a chair back before donning the apron, he snaps one switch. There’s an audible click, thunk, click as one door on the back wall of the mezzanine becomes unlocked.

“Some bodies we receive are braindead, others mauled and destroyed. In this particular case, a woman was neatly sliced into about ten slivers, but every speck of her was also recovered. Based off of a paper I wrote about applying studies of reattaching frog legs and lizard tails to humans, I received her body and given carte blanche.” Lecter walks over to the door and doesn’t even grunt in effort as he pulls the airtight-sealed-door open. “I used my skills as a surgeon to piece her back together, but I haven’t had time to test her body since. Tonight, I’m glad to share the continuance of this project with such astute colleagues.”

His back is to Will and Alana as he pulls a gurney out of the room, which now leaks wispy humidity and dry ice sublimated-gases into the main laboratory. On the gurney lies a woman, bare but for the morgue cloth covering her from the armpits to the mid-thighs. Her hair is dark and lies like a limp crown above her head. She’s also littered with stitches over most of her body: between her fingers, across her face, all in vertical lines. She really was sliced up like a block of cheese. Will’s empathy pushes the imagined pain onto him, collects from his memories what it must have felt like—he squirms and tries to refocus on Lecter’s speech.

“Ahh—here’s Margot with your tea.” With a wave of Lecter’s arm, a cup of warm tea, saucer and all, is placed into Will’s hands. When he glances over, Alana has the same, and Margot is standing close by, body language screaming protectiveness. What were those two doing when they went off? But then Lecter starts talking again.

“I’m going to connect a monitor for her vital signs, then stimulate her brain with different wavelengths of electromagnetic energy. When you have finished your beverages, feel free to come up and join me, although you must keep in mind that touching either her or any of the equipment may confound my results.” He doesn’t even look up from the body. He’s all deft fingers, rigging up an IV saline drip and connecting the monitor (all it shows is a flatline, no surprise) and attaching small pads with wires to her skull. Will downs his tea in two gulps, hands his teacup to Margot, then follows Lecter’s path up to the body.

“What was her name?” he asks, pulling on gloves just in case.

“Beverly Katz.” Hannibal places the last pad in place, then starts up the small generator. Will stares at her and begins to dive down into his thoughts, but Alana joins them soon and her presence brings Will back to reality, where Lecter’s announcing, “I will begin with low-intensity radio waves.”

He flips a switch and a low buzzing noise comes from the wires connected to Beverly’s head, the kind of noise you don’t notice until it suddenly starts or abruptly stops. They wait for a while, Lecter makes notes in a little book about her vital signs or something, then he flips the intensity up to microwaves. No change. Lecter writes something down, then flips up the intensity again. The cycle repeats until they reach ultraviolet-level intensity, which causes a spike in brain activity—

“Hmm.” Lecter still isn’t impressed, apparently, though, since he jumps x-ray altogether and shocks Beverly with gamma ray-intensity energy. But nothing happens.

They wait, and they stare, and Hannibal moves to switch the generator off, but then—

Beverly’s eyes pop open, and she lets out the most gut-wrenching wail Will’s ever heard.

 

Jimmy Price and Brian Zeller jerk in unison when they hear the cry. It’s the cry of a new born, bore through blood and forced through the canals of life and death and life again, stuck somewhere between the two states. The men simultaneously meet eyes. It’s the same cry as they had each made, ages before.

Each knows what it means, but Brian separates his lips anyway.

“He’s woken up another one.” Jimmy nods his head.

“Let’s go welcome the new waitstaff.” His smile and words are quick, jovial, but Brian knows he regrets the situation. Jimmy always hates it when Hannibal wakes up another victim.

“Do you want to explain things this time, or should I?” Brian asks as they walk, legs moving as one set, towards the elevator, then down, down, down to the basement. “I mean,” he leans to lightly bump Jimmy’s shoulder, “you nearly cried when you did it for me. It’s the least I can—”

“No, no,” Jimmy sighs and shakes his head; “no, it should be me. I’m the one who he woke up first, the one he explained everything to directly—”

“Oh, fuck Lecter!” Brain’s words burst from his mouth as buckshot from a shotgun. “Honestly! Fuck him. He did this shit to us, why should he respect any explanation he gave us? Fuck, Jimmy, I don’t even know why we’ve stuck around this long!” Brian works himself up, ready to rant until the elevator reaches the sublevel, but Jimmy’s defeated sigh cuts him short.

“We stay because he feeds us what we need. We’re not full Wendigo, Brian. We’re halflings. If we try to hunt for ourselves, we could break apart at the seams.” One of his hands traces the stitching along his abdomen. “We’re barely held together as it is. We wouldn’t survive without Lecter.”

“Okay, survive, no, not for long, but at least we could have a _life_.” Brian bites his tongue when the doors pop open. If Hannibal or Mason hear them, they’ll wind up back in the freezer, this time as produce. Both men remember what happened to Freddie when she got on Mason’s bad side and shiver in tandem. Seeing her death/second-death was one thing, but cleaning up the mess afterwards? That was just insult on top of injury.

Inside the lab is predictable, more or less: the new girl is strapped to the gurney, still screaming her bronchi apart; Hannibal is putting away machinery with the impassive face of a statue, and Margot is herding Hannibal’s probably-next-victims—but Mason is gone. Brian’s hairs stand up on the back of his neck and he jerks his head around, looking for the viler of the twins, but he can’t find the walking nightmare in the lab. Jimmy has walked ahead, so Brian rushes to catch up.

“We’ll take her, sir,” Jimmy says, polite as ever to the damn bastard, before pushing the gurney away from Hannibal and back towards the elevator. Brian has to resist making faces at Hannibal until they get out of the lab, now with the new girl in tow. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, you’ll be okay,” Jimmy is whispering to her, all low calming tones. Brian pats his best friend/only friend/partner-in-crime/partner-in-everything on the back and takes over pushing the girl. Inside the elevator, Jimmy undoes her restraints, slipping on and then kicking away a slip of fabric left on the floor. She’s stopped screaming by then, so Jimmy has room now to speak without shouting. “My name is Jimmy Price, this is Brian Zeller.” Brian smiles and wiggles his fingers, the motion between a wave and jazz hands. “What’s your name?”

“B-b-b—” she cuts herself off, shakes her head, and starts again. “Bev. Beverly Katz.” She takes a deep breath, then moves her lips and tongue, running her fingers along the stiches on her face and neck. “Why—where am I? The last thing I remember, just _hurting_ so fucking _badly_ ,” she says and starts to shiver. Brian takes over to stop her from drifting too far into her memories.

“Yeah, well, that’s Lecter for you. Of everyone he’s brought back, you’re probably the most ambitious, if it’s any consolation.” Jimmy glares at him and slaps his arm. “What?” Brian raises his hands defensively; “it’s true! All he did to you was slice you in half, yanked a couple organs out of me. We both saw you in the freezer, by the way,” he turns back to her, “and we saw you all…sliced and diced.”

The elevator dings and stops. No one pays attention to it.

"I was _what_?” Beverly’s eyes are wide open. The look would be comedic if the context wasn’t so gruesome. She’s upright on the gurney now, sitting up so she must feel better. Brian plops himself next to her and points to her stitches while opening his button down to show matching seams.

“Yep. All cut to ribbons. I think he killed you on the first blow, so that’s a relief, but then he sort of…went ham. Split you into thin slivers, set up your pieces in glass like a museum piece—”

Jimmy punches his arm, hard. “You don’t need to tell her about all that!”

“No, no,” Bev shakes her head, eyes stuck on Brian’s own stitches. “Tell me everything. What’d he do to us? How, why are we here? Is this…” She trails off and drops her voice low, conspiratorial. “Is this Hell?” Her eyebrows furrow and she glances back and forth between both men.

Brian huffs. “Might as well be.”

Jimmy glares at his counterpart again. “Ignore him. From what Hannibal’s explained and from what we’ve overhea—”

“Eavesdropped.”

“Hush, Brian. We’ve _overheard_ , Hannibal is a Wendigo. Basically, a magic cannibal with the horns, claws, et cetera of a primordial demon. He killed us, but kept our bodies frozen. When he needs a new waiter, he defrosts us, gives us a bit of his blood, and gets our brains functioning again. But it’s only really our brains that out keeping us alive; think of brain dead backwards, so our wounds never really heal and we’re, um, fragile.” Bev widens her eyes and stares at Jimmy.

“Fragile. Like, if my stitches pop…”

“All the gooey stuff comes falling out, yeah,” Brian says with a shrug. “We’re zombie Wendigos! A two-for-one supernatural species deal, limited time only.” Brian smiles when his comment gets a tiny snort out of Bev.

“And the guy who did all this, Hannibal, he did it all for _waiters_?” She looks between the pair of men like she expects to be proven wrong.

"Yep.” Jimmy smiles and shakes Bev’s hand while Brian hops off her gurney. “Welcome to the waitstaff. It’s a lifetime commitment.” That actually gets a full laugh out of her. Brian and Jimmy meet each other’s eyes before pulling the grate open and pushing Beverly out, always moving in unison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No-see-'ems: a tiny fly or bug. We have 'em down south, I don't know if y'all do, though, so I figured I should explain 'em...
> 
> More chapters, coming soon! I got a bunch edited recently so there'll be a small wave over the next week.


	8. It Isn't All Bad, Is It? Pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> itssss sex time! the way the timeline is working is a bit different from the movie, so here's the girls, the guys will be along shortly. ;)

Alana awakens to pressure next to her, sloping the bed towards her left. The girl, the gurney, the screaming—none of it has faded in her mind. Every thought is sharp, glass shards in fresh cuts. She jerks upright, flailing to protect herself from the nightmare scenarios running through her mind, but rough, well-used hands take hold of her wrists.

“Alana, it’s just me.” Margot’s voice is comforting and her breath is warm. Alana slumps back against the headboard.

“Jesus Christ, I thought,” she stops to swallow before continuing, “I thought—”

“I know. I know.” Margot rubs soothing circles into Alana’s wrist, then her forearm, moving slowly upwards until she reaches her shoulders. Two pairs of eyes meet, too close to each other for any feigned casualness. Two pairs of eyes, moving steadily closer. Margot’s hand trades shoulder for neck, her other finds Alana’s thigh; Alana’s own hands grasp Margot’s upper arms, and then she’s leaning closer and closer—

Lips meet lips. Margot leans backwards and drags Alana in her lap; they move slowly, gently.

Fingers lose identity, touch melting into touch, skin into skin. Recognition melts into exploration; realization and curiosity; unsated desire drifts through arteries both pulsing and stagnant. It’s pure and it’s precious, more innocent than any pair of virgins, even as Alana sheds Margot of her cotton and silk.

But Margot is moving a bit too slow for Alana’s tastes. She wishes there was time enough to take everything as lazily as Margot wants, but anxiety is rippling across Alana’s skin. With everything that’s happening, all the secrets bleeding from the house’s walls, anything could ruin this moment at any time.

Alana pulls away from the chaste kiss to meet Margot’s eyes. “Don’t be so delicate with me,” she says.

Margot’s brow furrows. “I—”

“Don’t argue. I know I’m human, and that you’re scared to hurt me, but I’m choosing this.” Her eyes are drawn away to watch while she runs fingers through Margot’s hair. She’s let down her bun. “So kiss me like you mean it.” Alana smirks, a challenge, and she grins when Margot’s pupils blow wide.

Margot pushes Alana onto her back, forearms landing on either side of her head as Margot sinks Alana into the plush mattress with her weight. She smiles down at her oh-so-willing prey. “Yes, ma’am,” she teases, then lowers her head until her lips are only a hair above Alana’s. Alana can feel hot air on her lips, and Margot is staring at her with her intense green eyes, and her body is warm against her own, soft breasts pressed against hers, but she _isn’t moving_ —

Alana jerks her head up, seizes Margot’s lips, and traces their seam with her tongue. Margot makes a small surprised noise, but happily goes along with it when Alana’s hands grab her hips and draw her closer. Alana grinds upwards, grunts in annoyance, and roughly shifts Margot’s hips so that their legs are slotted. She slides her thigh upwards, red silk slipping from soft skin as her thigh finds its destination:

The friction against her cunt makes Margot gasp, eager to deepen the kiss as Alana slides her tongue into Margot’s sweet mouth. Alana traces her tongue along Margot’s and the top of her mouth. She purrs when Margot mirrors her earlier movements, her knee pushing against Alana’s clit. Lips and tongues separate so Alana can gasp, “God, yes,” then reunited as both pairs of hands fight distance to find new expanses of skin.

Margot wrinkles silk as she slides her hands up Alana’s legs. She traces her nails along her curves, digging crescents into warm flesh when Alana runs her thigh against her clit. Movements reinvigorated, Margot trades cherishing for searching until she reaches the tie keeping Alana’s robe closed, the last barrier between their bodies.

Alana hums in approval. Both shift in unison, sliding and shifting until Alana’s robe is forgotten beneath them and Margot’s uniform finds its way to the floor.

Alana is hit with the realization of their bareness, her hands communicating what lips can’t explain, stopping their progression to stare. Each woman stops to take in the other, hands reverent and less anxious, now: Alana’s to the scars littering Margot’s torso, Margot’s to the stretch marks blessing Alana’s thighs.

“How did you get these?” Alana whispers, tracing each individual mark.

“My brother.” Margot’s voice hardens with the words. Alana’s hands still and she grits her teeth against the anger bursting in her ribs.

As smoothly as she can, Alana rolls them so she’s above Margot. She kisses her lips once more, then moves downwards. She pauses momentarily to appreciate the valley of her breasts, but only for a moment, before continuing down to her stomach. “He won’t _ever_ touch you again,” she hisses against her skin, then licks and sucks small love bites onto each mark.

Margot smiles down at Alana, seeing only dark hair as the woman moves around her abdomen. She threads her fingers into her hair, head dropping back in a moan when Alana switches to her inner thighs.

Margot twirls her fingers in Alana’s hair, switching between caressing her scalp and gripping her roots as Alana sucks burnt-red marks onto her ivory skin. “God, yes,” she mumbles; her murmurs become a yelp when the mouth between her legs abruptly surrounds her clit in warm heat.

Alana runs her tongue along the sensitive bud of skin, Margot’s little tugs on her hair and noises of approval spurring her to experiment a little lower, tongue dipping between soft folds to find slick evidence of arousal—

A jerk, sharper than the others, draws Alana away and up, up to her lover’s lips. Eyes shut, she melts against Margot, tongues tasting each other eagerly. Margot sits up and pulls Alana in her lap mid-kiss. Her hands find Alana’s breasts while Alana’s stay cradling Margot’s head. Alana purrs, moans, gasps into the kiss while Margot runs the pads of her thumbs over her nipples, toying with the buds until they harden and shift from pink to a rosy red. Lips leave hers, so Alana tilts her head, and warm breath brushes the expanse of her neck. Margot’s teeth nip and mark her neck while one hand drifts lower, bolder now, pressing firmly against her clit to make her throat work beneath foreign teeth and lips, beneath this different set of jaws.

Alana drifts within the sensations, just hanging on and letting Margot lead. But blunt teeth become suddenly sharp, and her eyes open and she jerks—

“Is everything okay?” Margot is worried, and she looks fine, no fangs to maul or claws to scrape. Alana nods, pulls Margot closer, and lets herself get lost in the feeling of soft skin against hers. Her hips roll in time with Margot’s fingers sliding over her clit, so Margot gets brave again and lets a finger slide between Alana’s folds. Alana moans encouragingly, so Margot does it again, and soon she creates a new rhythm: over Alana’s clit, into her cunt, back out and over her clit, then again. And again and again, until Alana loses focus and is just grinding her hips in time as best she can and gasping into Margot’s mouth.

Alana drops one hand from Margot’s shoulders to do the same, but it’s stopped by another hand on her wrist. Margot parts her lips from Alana’s, expression serious. “No, don’t, not this time. I just wants to see you.”

“Okay,” Alana says, then nods because her words are wispy at best. Her eyes drift back to Margot’s, then she crashes into them again, as unable to stop herself as the storm tides that slam against the shore. Her arms wrap tightly around the other woman’s neck; it’s grounding, letting her drift and float on the perfect electricity Margot is creating between her legs.

“This is good?” Margot whispers into her lips, and Alana is panting yes, god, yes, on instinct, so Margot moves her fingers faster, Alana fighting to keep up with her and moaning softly into a now barely-coherent kiss. She can feel herself reaching the edge, the static jolting up her legs and into her lower stomach, then she’s over and shivering and hips still shuddering, but Margot is holding her close, and she’s warm and safe.

Alana struggles to catch her breath and leans on Margot for support, but when she opens her eyes, she’s alone.

 

Beverly has had a rough day.

Like, really rough.

First, (well not really first, she has no clue how long ago this “first” really was, but hey, first as far as she remembers), she spilled her coffee on her way into work. So she’s late, which pisses her new boss right the fuck off, blah blah blah, and she winds up on errand duty. Then, she’s gotta go get a load of files, which she is _totally overqualified_ for! She has a degree in forensics and gets herself into the brand-spankin’-new profiling division in the FBI, and for this _shit_?

Anyway, she’s mad, and getting files, then carrying said files up _way_ too many stairs because _of course_ the elevator is down that day. Of all days!

So, off to a bad start, can’t see over the file pile, walking around the creepy fire exit/emergency stairs with lighting that could make even a bunny seem creepy as all get-out. She’s walking along, on the landing and about to start down the next flight, and she feels just a little pressure on her lower back and goes _falling down the damn stairs. Just fucking perfect._

And shit just gets worse from there.

She opens her eyes to a headache, bright ass lights, and a man in a smock holding an electric saw above her (very scary at the time, not so much now that she’s basically a zombie). Boom, he starts cutting into her, then she screams, keeps screaming, a bunch of cutting, she passes out from the pain, so on and so forth.

 _Then_ she wakes up buck-ass nude in a weird lab surrounded by strangers!

But at least the gay couple that showed her around were nice.

And Jack fucking Crawford can’t get on her case anymore.

Beverly was never one to fail to find a bright side, or at least some sources for dark comedy. She has never found this trait as useful as she does right now.

In short, though, very bad day. And after all that excitement, she’s just supposed to sit around in some room, hers according to Jimmy, and wait for someone to get her or something. She can’t relax at all, though, obviously. She feels like, well, something to do with chemistry. Her brain has literally been fried, so metaphors aren’t right forming just yet. But Beverly doesn’t feel like waiting around for waitstaff training, yadda yadda.

She rolls onto her side, still more or less lying flat on the small bed, and grimaces when she feels her insides sort of shift. And squish. She rolls back onto her back.

Attempt two: she scoots backwards until she can use the headboard to hoist herself into sitting position. Her hands have trouble properly gripping the wood, all her fingers aren’t quite moving in unison yet, but she does manage to sit up. Bev then kinda waddles back and forth on her ass until she’s facing the nearest bed edge, and gingerly stands herself upright. A cursory glance tells her no stitches have popped and let any gooey stuff escape, so she’s good to go!

The hall is quiet and dark when she steps out. Her footsteps feel inordinately loud in the darkness, and she feels along the walls, looking for a branching corridor or hallway. It’s a bit nerve-wracking, but much better than sitting and waiting for another hour. Maybe, if her luck decides to switch, she’ll find a kitchen. Maybe including like hot chocolate or cake something. Bev feels like she deserves the calories after the day she’s had.

The darkness begins to shift with a faint light coming from under a door. It shifts back with a click, a switch or something, and Beverly rushes down that stretch of wall when she hears what are _definitely_ lesbian sex noises. In the far distance, she hears some weirdly tinny piano music start up, so she goes in the opposite direction of that. A few windows show the moon, and that small amount of light finally lets her escape the maze of bedrooms. Why does this damn house have so _many_? She shrugs, figuring that’s why Hannibal the Wendigo-Cannibal needs extra help staff.

About ten more minutes of wandering leads her to a large set of double doors. There’s no sound besides her footsteps, so she tugs on a knob, unsurprised when it doesn’t budge. She tries the other knob, just to be sure, but that one does give away, albeit with a creak that feels shattering in the oppressive silence.

Beverly freezes. Hand still on the knob, ear frantically searching for signs of danger, heart still not beating physically but jumping out of her chest in spirit. But there’s nothing. Just quiet, maybe a few piano notes here and there. The playing has gotten much worse, she notices, but that’s it. Another shrug, and she slips inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anything doesn't make sense or needs more description, just comment. I left a lot of stuff vague on purpose but I don't want anything to be too confusing, so, yeah.


	9. The Harpsichord of Damocles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> timeline is gonna get a bit wacky here, y'all

Abigail loved her father. Of her family, she was the closest to him, and they did everything together: hunt, fish, first day of school, last day of school, teach to ride a bike, everything.

Abigail loved her father.

But at the moment, she couldn’t be happier to see him dead on Hannibal’s floor.

“What are you planning, Hannibal? And _why_?” Her eyes meet her guardian’s. She can tell he’s reformulating his answer, calculating the best response now that he’s seen her tears. Abigail blinks rapidly and tries to focus on Will, who’s lying catatonic on an examining table.

“Do you still trust me?” he asks, walking around the metal slab to stand in front of her, thumb brushing away a wet trail left on her cheek.

“I don’t know.” She shakes her head and knocks his hand away. “Don’t—don’t lie or tell me half-truths. Just tell me. God, for just _once_ , just tell me _why_!” Abigail steps backwards and bangs her fist on whatever bit of machinery is behind her. “ _Jesus Christ._ ” She closes her eyes and leans, physical support overcompensating for her lack of emotional failsafes.

She feels more than hears as Hannibal moves around his lab. “Why is William here, why are you here, or why did I have William shoot your father?” His voice is too precise. It pisses her off that he can be so calm, so collected, while she’s left falling apart.

“You said he was _dead_. You said he died the night you took me in.” She hears a pause, a falter, in his footsteps and knows she’s managed to cut him. He can hear her doubt, her anger, her confusion.

Quick foot falls, then an arm pushes against her back, a torso takes her weight from the instrument panel. “My dear Abigail, I have shielded you from many things in this world: homelessness, starvation, lack of education. I have also, however, shielded you from some truths I perhaps should have left apparent. But what’s done is done; I have fractured your trust in me and my motives.” A hand gently fixes her hair, erases drying trails under her resolutely closed eyes. “I will not apologize for doing what I believed was best, but I am sorry to have given you reason to doubt me.”

“Then _explain_ ,” she hisses against his chest. Fingers curl into fists at her sides and her back is ramrod straight.

“I promise you, I will. Now, however, I have procedures to put into motion. Go find—”

“I know. She’ll get me whatever I like from the kitchen.” Cutting off her patricidal father-figure feels good, a small rebellion. Abigail walks out of the lab just as the detective starts talking again.

As she rides the elevator, she watches her reflection in the glass operations panel. Fingers pull the bow at her throat loose, let it drop to the ground, and coarse wires pull her lips into a smile.

 

Will wakes up back in bed. The guest room bed. Because he’s still stuck in Lecter’s house. With zombies.

_Fuck!_ His mind screams, and he nearly falls off the mattress. _Zombies_. Like, dead-girl-waking-up-on-a-damn-slab _zombies_. This is way more than he signed up for.

Which begs the question: how did he wind up back in this bed? Why hadn’t he left yet?

No matter the reason, Will scrambles to his feet and goes to grab his now-dry clothes – wasn’t he wearing them down in the lab, though? – and is yanking open the door to grab Alana when a broad, gaudy-patterned chest blocks him.

Lecter.

“Um, hi,” Will says lamely, taking a half-step back into the room. He was only about a millimeter from running into the damn man, and while his opinion on him has softened (ish), he isn’t eager to fall into the other man’s arms.

“I see you’ve gotten redressed. Were you planning on leaving?” He looks maybe hurt, maybe just _expectant_ , so Will falters, the answer on his tongue rotting before it’s spoken. Lecter continues into the awkward silence, kindly ignoring Will’s semi-gaping mouth. “I see. I was under the impression we had come to an agreement, but I now see I was mistaken.”

Will tries and fails to hide his confusion. When did he make a deal with Lecter? Something in Lecter’s eyes changes then, and Will is happy to let the man keep talking as he tries to figure out what the _hell_ is happening: “Ahh, you’ve forgotten. It was my mistake to arrange a covenant with a man so tired. If you wish to leave, feel free, but I do implore you to rest some before your journey tomorrow.” Lecter turns, begins walking away, and Will nods abortively. That’s why he forgot: not enough sleep, too much happening.

“Wait—what was our deal, exactly? Remind me.”

Lecter turns back around, face characteristically blank. “Beverly Katz—you had asked about how she had managed to awaken. I promised you I would explain at breakfast, provided you and Dr. Bloom consented to stay the night after all that madness.” Will nods and steps back into his room. “However—”

Will jerks his head back up, meeting Lecter’s eyes again. The man seems as surprised as Will that he’s continued the conversation. His expression becomes…Can one call it sheepish on a man that imposing?

“—I confess to a bout of insomnia. I doubt I will sleep at all tonight. I realize I have caused you to lose more than enough sleep already, but if you would care to join me for tea, you are more than welcome.”

Will’s eyes are like ball bearing, heavy in their sockets. He’s been worn thin by exhaustion and excitement; by all accounts, he needs sleep. “Yeah, yes, okay. Lead the way.” Alana will kill him for this in the morning, he knows. He doesn’t even know why he’s agreeing to this. Whatever, though. He’ll blame it on the booze in the morning, though he’s been sober for hours.

Lecter’s eyes seem to shine, rich earth lightening to scorching amber. It makes Will’s stomach do a little flip; that and the slight tightening of his boxers explain why his gut told him to say yes to this shit.

Lecter’s lips quirk as he guides their trek into the dark halls.

 

Going to his cherubim room, he had expected a quick rebuff from the gruff man, just enough interaction to confirm the change had begun. And indeed it had: Hannibal could smell that particular fevered sweetness from kilometers away, and his dear William’s forgetfulness indicated he’d lost time. Hallucinations would be coming, soon.

Making the offer as he had was a sign of weakness, his tongue becoming loose with the excited beating of his heart. He longed to claim William as his, finally and absolutely; his desires fed impulsivity into his arteries. His seraph’s acquiescence, though, had been an unexpected (if surely delightful) shock.

“Did you come for something?”

“I’m sorry?” Hannibal shames himself, becoming lost in thought when the subject of his most dangerous fantasies walked alongside him.

“To my room. Why did you come by at, what, three in the morning?” William fidgets with his watch, eyes again hidden under chocolate curls.

“To see if I had made you too unhappy.” The statement, though a falsehood, draws William’s confession-inspiring eyes to his own once more. “I know what I have shown you tonight can only be categorized as disturbing.” His lips pull into a thin smile, but he schools the expression into its self-deprecating cousin. “I feared I had perhaps inspired nightmares.” He must not seem so eager about such horrors; his William is yet but human.

A huff, some sad excuse of a laugh escapes those Michelangian lips: “You’re probably right, not that I can really tell anymore.”

Hannibal sculpts a look of concern into place. “Oh?”

“My job. My, ah, empathy thing.” His smile is tragic as one hand ruffles chaotic locks. “I have too many monsters in my head to really notice an extra.” Hannibal tries to simmer the flames of jealousy that consume his frontal and temporal lobes. Soon, he promises himself, he will be the only monster to invade that alabaster skull, provided that the beast who will emerge will leave any room.

Hannibal nods and allows the conversation to die. The halls are dark, but he knows the house well; his feet could have led them even had Hannibal been blind. Pace by pace, acrylic dark is broken by candles. His peripherals show William blink, attempt to regain his bearing in the new light,  and continue to follow as Hannibal takes him to the low, wooden bench.

“Why did you take us to a piano?” William’s truly curious tone absolves his discourteous diction. Even if it hadn’t, Hannibal would forgive all impoliteness in the world to watch his angel pace about the harpsichord, misleadingly delicate fingers tracing the detailing in the woodgrain.

“I didn’t.” Hannibal props open the cabinet and takes a seat behind the keys.

“Then what is this?” Williams drops down next to him, not quite touching, and runs a nail over a key.

“A harpsichord. Perhaps you have heard of it before?”

“I think so, in a book, long time ago.”

“But you’ve never seen one, heard one played, in person?”

“Nope.”

Hannibal places his hands in position. “Then, please, allow me to be the first to show you.”

 

Mason watches Hannibal tap away at the keys from the lab. The monitors hang above the operating theatre. The brat on the table flings her unattached arm and manages to snag a wire, causing one screen to go dark. He scowls as best he can manage at her; he should have tied her down to the table already.

His face is still leaking blood, sinew and skin dripping from his jaw like a cobweb. He sucks air through his teeth and darts his tongue out at what remains of his upper lip.

_Oh_ , this will be _fun_.


	10. It Isn't All Bad, Is It? Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will goes "fuck you, but fuck me first." Basically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm updating this later than I meant to, but the fact that it's a Double Length chapter should make up up for it.

Mason wakes up. And he wakes up to some _infuriatingly_ impotent limbs. He sighs at the ceiling and scrunches what’s left of his nose, placated by the small opportunity of movement.

But, mostly, he’s left to his thoughts. And while he _does_ quite enjoy ruminating on new ways to torture his sister, it’s dreadfully boring to only _imagine_ and not _enact_. The thought of pulling out Margot’s lungs while she’s still using them only eases so much of his impatience.

Soon enough, although hardly quick enough for his tastes, Cordell’s imposing form darkens the makeshift doorway. Despite the obvious ragged scar branching across his face, the one drooping eye that hadn’t been perfectly fixed yet, Cordell stays smiling until he sees Mason’s own face.

“Good lord. I’m surprised Margot had the stomach to do all that to your face, but not to finish the job?” he says, kneeling beside Mason’s collapsed form and lifting him, holding the bleeding figure horizontal across two tree-truck-esque arms.

“It was incompetence, not mercy,” he spits; “Didn’t I tell you to come down here if I didn’t meet you in _ten minutes_?” Mason hisses, though the effect is diminished by his lack of lips and general lower-jaw coverage.

“Apologies, Mr. Verger. There was a commotion in the lab I had to avoid. I trust I didn’t keep you waiting too long?” Cordell carries Mason out of the hideaway and through the maze of hallways, opting to take the stairs instead of the much noisier elevator. Mason wants Margot to think she’s won; it will make her misery so much worse, letting her feel how _close_ she’d gotten to freedom. The thought makes Mason shiver, although he can’t tell if the motion continues below his neck.

“You did.” Above him, Cordell continues to smile, regardless. He moves stealthy despite being so daunting in size. Mason silently congratulates himself on his choice in servants.

“Is there any way I can absolve myself of such a transgression?”

“Yes. Take me back to my room and reconnect my brain stem. This forced ragdoll performance is infuriating.”

“As you wish, sir.”

 

Hannibal finishes his piece, leaving Will dazed. That’s the only word for it. For the first time in _so goddamn long_ his mind felt quiet, normal, controllable; with the echoes of the last note, Will could feel himself sinking back into chaos, black tar drawing him down, down, down.

“That was…” Will can’t find the words. ‘Beautiful’ doesn’t cover it, ‘awesome’ is too cliché.

“Did you not enjoy it? If so—”

“No, no,” Will shakes his head, hand landing on Hannibal’s arm to further dissuade the unfinished notion. “No, I just can’t find the right words. Ethereal, uhh, fantastic. Just, really fucking great. Who wrote it?” He meets Hannibal’s eyes. He can see the disapproval of his swearing swirling his irises, but it’s gone within a blink, replaced by pride.

“I composed it myself.” Will huffs a small laugh and Hannibal’s brow furrows, genuine annoyance about to take root, so Will cuts him off before he can start.

“Sorry, I’m not, I’m not laughing to be cruel. But, of course you wrote it. Who else?” Will lets a smile break his marathon of frowns and shifts his eyes back to the keys. This moment, it’s good; he doesn’t want to ruin it. Doesn’t want to _see_ into Lecter’s psyche again, like he had at dinner.

Silence lasts one, two, beats, is about to reach a third when Lecter touches Will’s wrist, reminds him he hasn’t moved his hand. He drops it back to his side, his movements reeking of embarrassment.

“Willia—”

“Will. Just Will.”

“Will, then. I—”

“I’m about to be rude, but I need to ask you something.” He meets Lecter’s eyes again, tries not to read into the pleasure beyond the surprise, and lets everything that’s had him petrified since dinner fall out of his mouth:

“My empathy. I used it on you. I can’t help it, can’t turn it off. And what I saw—I didn’t like it. It was _bad_ , terrifying. But, you, you’re not just that, are you? And it’s exasperating. I thought I had you figured out by the third course, but now I don’t know, so just tell me, outright. Who have you killed, and why?” He focuses all the seriousness of the question into his gaze, fingers gripping the piano bench, one hand lying just close enough to his service pistol.

Hannibal looks shocked, and Will can see everything that runs through his mind (annoyance, satisfaction, recalculation, cruelty) and inches backwards, but then the shell cracks, and Hannibal’s lips are pulled into the sincerest smile he’s given all night.

“I certainly underestimated your ability to detect truth, Will. I will not insult your intelligence by lying to you: yes, I have killed people.” The older man turns to face his instrument, fingers gliding over well-worn ivory. “As I am sure you will soon realize if you haven’t already, the bodies in my lab aren’t from any local university.”

Will closes his eyes, and when he opens them, he isn’t—

He isn’t on the bench, he’s ten feet back from it, and he has his gun on Lecter—

“What the _fuck_ ,” he growls, gun falling to the floor, reckless, useless, he’s wasted all his bullets on Hobbs—

“What the _fucking hell is happening, Hannibal?_ ” He forces the words out, voice scratching to hold back a scream—

He pants as Hannibal holds a hand against his forehead, the other supporting Will’s back, and he has to lean against the other man because his legs don’t feel sturdy at _all_ —

The episode passes, pain and reality coalescing, become codependent again. His head stops pounding, though he’s still as hot and sweaty as a Louisianan summer.

Will drops himself back onto the piano bench, head in his hands. “I’m guessing this isn’t _food_ poisoning,” he says, though he has to push the words out over pants.

The pause between question and answer is noticeably long.

“No.” Hannibal sits down next to him gracefully, the dead opposite of Will’s inelegant slouch.

“What did you do that so awful that, you’ll admit to _a lab full of_ murders, but not this?” Will hisses. He wishes he still had his gun, empty as it is, if only so he wouldn’t feel so helpless.

“Because you don’t mind the murder.”

Will opens his mouth to argue, makes a few cutoff noises, but gives up the fight. “I want to,” he replies, finally.

“But you don’t.” A glance to the side shows Hannibal’s smug not-quite-smile. “That’s what horrified you so terribly, down in New Orleans. You went too deep inside the mind of a killer, and you found you liked it there. You’re scared to go so far again only because you believe you will not want to _leave_.”

“When did you figure out all that?” Will asks, back popping as he sits up, leans back against the harpsichord.

“When you ‘figured out’ my own dark proclivities.” Hannibal has that hungry look in his eyes again when he looks Will over; Will finds he doesn’t find the gaze so disturbing anymore. “Of course, I had no details until Abigail mentioned what you two had talked about, before Hobbs arose.”

He’s midway through revaluating his stance on Alana’s suggesting of ‘eating out’ when his eyes blow wide.

Blue iris meets marron in a flash.

“The food. It’s people, isn’t it?”

Hannibal’s eyebrows raise, but no calculation flies across his retinas. Only pride. “Yes.”

“That’s what you didn’t want to tell me?” A small tick in the lines around his mouth has Will backtracking. “No. Something worse. The food, the cannibalism, you’re proud of that. This is something less…artistic. Necessary for pretty, but not pretty itself. The brownish water leftover when you clean your paintbrushes.”

Hannibal turns his head and faces the room. “An apt analogy. I’m afraid I have instigated aberrations of a dire nature without your consent, although I believe we will all be the better for it by the night’s end.”

Will grips the wood under his fingers, poises his tongue to ask what, why, why him, but lets the words die. His fingers relax. Whatever Hannibal has planned, he can’t change it by now: it’s been going since dinner, his gun is out of bullets, et cetera. Actually, he finds himself morbidly curious to see what the strange man has planned. The stream of his thoughts takes him down a new tributary, and this time, he doesn’t fight it.

      

Hannibal takes in the dim lighting of the room, pondering the events of the night in a way he hasn’t in decades. It isn’t regret; regret is a useless notion created by those with too much time and not enough wits. No, it’s only a longing, a prayer he had met his William (Will, he corrects himself) under different circumstances. Another world, where he could have given his angel a choice, given him the opportunity to understand what a blessing Hannibal’s attention truly is.

Instead, he has had to force a change that should have taken time, had the space to grow to a natural crescendo. The transformation itself will always be glorious, but in Hannibal and Will’s minds, he knows there will always be vestiges of grime; an inexorable consequence of circumstances.

Nevertheless, he can see the gears changing in Will’s mind, shifting apart to let him in, let out the dark perfection kept hidden for so long. If he believed in a deity beyond his power, he would have given thanks for those dark curls and calamitous eyes.

A rough hand arrives without warning; Hannibal finds his jaw pulled back towards his Eros, then lips, ones deserving of odes and requiems, press against his own.

Hannibal knows better, knows that this sort of moment should be saved, but he cannot deny himself what his William has so freely given: fingers fly to those curls, pull his angel close, skin alight wherever his touches his seraph, his Venus of Urbino, his cherubim—a thousand words for celestial beauty, and yet none holy enough for his chosen.

The moment is beautiful. But a moment, an instant of weakness, is all Hannibal can allow it to be.

“Will,” he whispers. It’s nearly physically painful, but he does pull away, hand dropping to William’s neck to keep him stable but separate. Hannibal swallows, regains his composure. “Will. Perhaps now is not th—”

“What?” William asks, eyes staring mercilessly back into Hannibal’s own. “Not a good time? Because you drugged me?” His hands leave the bench and find Hannibal’s skull, one mirroring the older man’s along Hannibal’s neck and the other pushing away his hair, removing the last veil between them.

Hannibal finds himself at a loss. “Yes.” He simply agrees, allows his control to slip. Such is the effect of such dangerous blue eyes. Gorgeous yet treacherous, broken stained glass alighting the floor of a church.

William tsks and smirks at the taller man. “Watch out. You’re becoming dangerously honest.”

“I will strive to remain more avoidant in the future.”

“Please do. It’s the only reason I find you interesting.”

Hannibal cups one of William’s cheeks. “Oh, you will find me interesting in a myriad of ways.” His eyes fall on those lips again, tinged a dark pink. He years to touch them again, see how dark they will turn once kiss-swollen and drowned in bliss.

Inexorably, he is drawn forward again, William matching his movements, until two sets of lips merge once again. Hannibal considers pulling away, but the suggestion is quashed as William grabs his shoulders, wrinkling his dress shirt deliciously as he maneuvers himself into Hannibal’s lap. His arms wrap around the back of the smaller man, holding him close, giving him whatever agency he desires.

And, it seems, his William desires quite a bit.

 

Will can still feel the heat within his brain. With his eyes open, he can see the fuzziness of his reality, seams of gold and red interrupting the picture. Within his head, though, his thoughts have never been clearer. His goals are single-tracked. It makes him grin against Hannibal’s thin lips, makes him bold, unafraid enough to replace gentle touch with teeth and align his hips with Hannibal’s own.

The larger man grunts beneath him. Will likes the way large hands seize his sides when his teeth draw blood, so he pulls the wounded lip into his mouth, sucks more crimson from Hannibal’s veins. His plan works, and Hannibal, now encouraged, lets his hands drop lower.

He’s pulled flush against Hannibal; hot breath mingles as lips separate just enough for eyes to meet. Blue melting into maroon, tongues meeting before lips, kiss melting into teeth again, and Will loses himself in the rhythmic drift between heat and pain.

He likes it more than he’d usually admit. To himself or anyone else.

“I like it when you bite back,” he whispers, grins as he feels Hannibal’s breath hitch _just_ enough. Oh, he didn’t see that coming.

In a flash, Hannibal’s mouth is gone, replaced on an arm he’s pulled from around his neck. “You are fascinating,” he says against Will’s inner forearm, breath grazing veins, “And exhilarating…” He trails off, foregoing words to press kisses against the thin skin of Will’s inner wrist. “And _maddening_.” Will winces as sharp teeth piece his skin, but it’s well worth the pain to watch the older man lick the blood from the wound.

“And what are you going to do about it?” Will asks. He’s already breathless.

“More than you know.” The words are pressed into the bite, then Hannibal’s lips are back against his own.

 

Hannibal cannot stand how Will makes him act: brash, untimely, thoughtless. But, as cliché as the thought is, he also does not know how he lived so long without this heavenly boy between his arms.

He guides Will’s legs around his waist. With one hand under each globe of Will’s ass, he stands, careful as he places the smaller man on the cabinet of the harpsichord, leaving him suspended just above the keys.

“Are you sure? Its not—gonna break?”

“As I built this instrument myself, I believe I am well aware of how much weight it can support.” That effectively quiets his angel’s anxieties, leaving Hannibal free to plunder his mouth with intent tongue while his hands spread lean thighs.

He grazes Will’s upper thighs, thumbs the juncture between thigh and torso, just enough pressure to cause him to mewl, sputter in confusion and roll his hips against Hannibal’s hand.

“H-Hannibal, _dammit_ ,” he hisses.

“Yes, Will?”

“Just— _fuck_ — _touch_ me,” he says, accenting his statement by moving one of Hannibal’s hands onto the button of his trousers. Hannibal can’t bear to hide the pleased quirk of his lips as he thumbs the button open, pushes down the zipper, and palms the hardening flesh still trapped within Will’s boxers. “God— _yes_.” The words come mumbled from swollen lips now pressed against his shoulder.

Will is quite a sight: face flushed a delightful pink, chest lightly heaving, arm still branded with his own bitemark. He wants to commit the image to memory, to draw this scene and keep the recollection for himself alone.

But his angel, it seems, isn’t satisfied leaving Hannibal to his musings—

              

Will’s fingers are trembling, but he does manage to free Hannibal’s cock, and the man practically _purrs_. He takes the length into his hand, slides his palm along it experimentally. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to tell that Lecter is _big_. And uncircumcised, which isn’t exactly surprising. Will continues his eager exploration. He bucks into the hand on his own dick, fights against the cloth still containing him, and is about to start cursing again when Hannibal gets the message and finally tugs his boxers down.

“Are you sure you want to do this, now?” Hannibal says the words into Will’s hair with a puff of warm breath. He’s about to huff out some vague affirmative, anything to get Hannibal to fucking move his hand or _something_ , but something clicks in his head—

“Oh.” He pauses, pulls his forehead away from Hannibal’s shoulder. “ _Oh_. That—that’s why you’re being so fucking aggravating.” He meets Hannibal’s eyes. It’s freeing, to not be afraid anymore of what he’ll find. “Yeah, yes, you have my consent. Anything—everything you want.” Hannibal’s eyes seem to go from brown to red, and then the man is kissing him again, nearly bruising and it’s _aggressive_ and so fucking _hot_ —

There are words to be said, about Hannibal’s concern and Will’s understanding, kind things and soft, sweet things. But neither of them is any of those adjectives; the words remain unsaid, replaced with sharp teeth grazing tongue and nipping flesh.

Hannibal wastes no time in getting Will to full hardness: a few sweeps of his hand over the shaft, thumb sliding over the head to steal the beading precum. Will does the same, gentle as he moves foreskin out of the way before palming the shaft again and again.

“Stand up.” There’s no room for question in the tone of the command, so Will submits, sliding off the harpsichord; Hannibal grabs his hips, spins him around. Will doesn’t need anther hint. He leans over the harpsichord cabinet, practically mewling when Hannibal grabs his ass with both hands. Thumbs hook into his waistband, laying him lower half bare to Hannibal. Will hits a few keys as he scrambles for purchase on the smooth wood of the instrument.

He hears a bottle open behind him and laughs, despite the situation. “I didn’t expect you to be the type to carry lube around.”

“And I am not. Linseed oil, however, can work as both lubricant and instrument polish.” Will’s next sarcastic comment is cut off by a cool, slick finger sliding between his cheeks. “Have you been anally penetrated before?”

Will nods. “Yeah, just, not for a while.” He spreads his legs a little wider, leans on his elbows, tries to force himself to relax.

A large hand lands between his shoulder blades.

“Will?”

“Yeah—I’m okay, I’m, fuck.” His cheeks heat up and his forehead drops onto the cool wood. “I’m sorry, _shit_ , this is embarrassing.”

There’s a pause behind him, then the finger is gone. “Perhaps this is not—”

“No.” Will shakes his head and turns around. “No, I want to.” He pushes his hair off of his forehead and eyes the bench. “Sit down.”

Hannibal raises an eyebrow but obeys all the same. He sits, legs spread, cock proudly erect and red. Will watches his eyes, doesn’t let himself feel embarrassed as he steps out of his pants and boxers, toes off his shoes. He sits, straddling Hannibal’s lap, arms around the taller man’s neck, and hands immediately fly to hold him in place.

“This is better?” Will only nods, keeps his eyes focused on Lecter’s, then leans forward to kiss him again. The hands at his sides rub slow circles into his sides; one disappears, and the pressure against his hole returns. This time, Will can relax, but it still makes him hiss when one fingers begins to push inside him. The kiss breaks and Will leans against Hannibal’s shoulder again, breaths in the subtle scent of whatever detergent he uses.

The finger retreats to rub oil into his rim, gentle but insistent, making Will keen. His legs wrap tight around Hannibal’s waist, freeing Hannibal’s other hand to slide along his abdomen and take his cock in hand again. As the finger slides back inside, this time to the first knuckle, his cock is stroked. Will makes a garbled moaning noise, caught somewhere between feeling _really good_ and _uncomfortable as fuck_.

He can feel the finger move, shift, then still, the hand stroking him all the while. He grunts and bucks his hips forward; it really has been too long since he’s had sex. As his hips move, so does the finger inside him, and when he focuses on it, Will finds he doesn’t exactly _mind_ the burn.

“Keep going,” he growls; Hannibal gladly complies. The finger inches forward, and then it’s fully inside. It’s a foreign yet familiar sensation; he testes the sensation, rolling his hips into the hand in front of him then pushing back against the pressure inside him. And yeah, no, he isn’t minding the feeling in the _slightest_.

The finger slides out and is placed by a pair, following the same pattern: into until the first knuckle, wait, then all the way. “Fuck, _yes_ ,” Will mumbles. Hannibal spreads the fingers, just a bit, and Will moans against the stretch, gasping when a third finger already starts pushing inside him. Hannibal slides it in further each time he scissors Will further open. Within seconds, the pattern has him panting, moaning against the invasion, bucking his hips between the two very different sensations.

When he’s taken all three to the last knuckle, Hannibal pulls them out. They’re quickly replaced with his cockhead, which pushes against Will’s rim, lightly catching then slipping free again. The hand on his cock also disappears, probably to guide Hannibal’s probing member.

“Shit, _fuck_ , yes,” he moans; it feels good, despite the tease. Will rolls his hips back onto the pressure, sinking his teeth into clothed shoulder when the head finally catches and stays in. He can feel the vibrations against his temple as Hannibal moans, a noise he mirrors as the shaft of his cock starts to slide in, stretching his rim despite the preparation.

The sensitive flesh protests, but Will ignores it and grinds downwards, taking more of Hannibal’s cock. The pressure, the burn, the stretch—it’s rough, violent despite Hannibal’s attempt at caution, and Will loves every second of it.

“G-Good for you, too?” Will mumbles, most of his focus on bouncing, trying to bottom out despite Hannibal’s apparent insistence on sliding inside slowly.

“You feel like finest silk,” Hannibal whispers against his ear; it makes Will moan and let out a little cry. That, it seems, breaks Hannibal’s resolve, and in one thrust, he’s balls-deep in Will’s ass.

“ _Fuck_.” Will lets his head drop back. His hole is screaming, but he can’t tell whether it’s pain or pleasure anymore. Probably both.

Hannibal lifts him by the junctures between thigh and ass; as he slides back down on his cock, Will shouts a breathy moan, arms flying backwards for support and landing noisily on the keys. “Do that again.” The words are a command, but the tone is more pleading. His eyes are shut, but Will knows Hannibal looks all pleased again. Nevertheless, the man complies, lifting Will’s hips again, cock rising up to meet him as he slams himself back down. “God yes, fuck, yes…”

“There is no God involved in this,” Will opens his eyes and Hannibal has chased his torso, leaving them both leaning over the harpsichord keys; “only me.” His eyes scream sin and self-entitlement. Will can’t help but kiss him again.

Hannibal’s tongue mimics his cock, gliding past Will’s defenses to dominate him from within. Will lets him in, runs his tongue under the other man’s, teeth clicking against his on the next downward slam.

Each thrust, new keys are hit. Each lift and following drop, a new chord, until they’re playing some kind of dissonant symphony: Will’s palms, Hannibal’s fingers, overlapping and grasping, harmony in body overcoming the notes.

The pace they set is brutal, and Will isn’t going to let them slow, no matter how his muscles scream exhaustion. His world focuses in, narrowing to only where his and Hannibal’s skin meets, two becoming one through heat and sweat—

Hannibal starts to pull away. Will replaces his hands over the other man’s on the keys, fingers wrapping tight around his palms and wrists. “No, don’t—”

“Will, I’m going to—”

“Do it. Come in me.” Will doesn’t give the man a chance to respond, moving his knees to either side of Hannibal’s so he can meet the thrusts unaided. Hannibal says something, but it’s swallowed by Will’s lips and drowned out by their noises, the breathy moans and aggressive grunting and wet slapping.

One hand on the harpsichord, one hand holding Hannibal’s shoulder for support, Will takes over their pace. He lifts and drops as fast as he can manage. Hannibal grabs his upper thighs to help guide him. Quickly, their own sounds wildly surpass the volume of the keys, each man desperate to stay joined, create friction, be together and separate at once; Will feels his own balls tighten—

White shoots from his dick, landing in ropes across Hannibal’s and his chests; a low moan from Hannibal, then Will can feel wet heat filling his ass; a final streak escapes his cock, then he falls forward, exhausted, onto Hannibal’s ruined dress shirt.

The room quiets. For a while, there’s only heavy breathing, Will clutching the fabric of Hannibal’s shirt and Hannibal holding Will against himself. It’s kind of a wonder they managed to remain upright.

Will clears his throat and looks up to meet Hannibal’s eyes. “Sorry I ruined your shirt. And maybe the piano bench.”

Hannibal pushes an errant curl off his sweaty forehead. “Don’t be.” He’s got that little smile thing back on his face, and Will wants to kiss him again, but faulters. He has no idea where they stand now, and he’s too tired to ask.

“Lead me back to my room?” he asks, already separating himself from Hannibal’s broad chest. He winces as he removes the cock from his ass. He can feel semen drip down the back of one thigh. He definitely needs to shower.

 “Of course.” He waits politely while Will redresses, spares one disdainful glance at the state of his shirt while tucking away his cock. Overall, though, he looks really pleased. Like, more than orgasm-happy kind of pleased. But it’s too late/early/fuck-it to care about that right now.

Will nods when he’s finished, and Hannibal takes him back through the dark halls.


	11. note

hey y'all! this fic isn't dead, just FYI. 

I'm still writing it, but to avoid another long pause, I'm finishing i all at once. nce I'm into just editing I'll start posting chapters again. So, if you have it bookmarked, just like, don't delete this fic yet. It'll be completed, I swear!

As for an explanation, I'm in college, so most of y'all know how that is. Lots of work an adulting, et cetera. But I'm making time to write.

I don't know when I'll start posting chapters again, but when I do, it'll be the beginning of the end for the fic. If I have time, I may even go back and fix some of the earlier chapters that I'm a little unhappy with, looking back on it.

And uhh question: I made a playlist to write this fic to, and I can post the link, if y'all want it?? If so just tell me in the comments and I'll add it to the description or something.

Long story short, happy almost summer, and hopefully I'll be posting again sometime soon-ish!


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